San Diego, 1945

Carol Coffee Reposa

June 30, 2021

Looking out the window

In the back seat

Of our battered Ford

I saw something

Filled with light,

More light than I had ever seen

Bigger than anything

I knew to name,

Even the sun

Or Mother’s arms

When she carried me to bed.

Pointing to that brightness I squealed,

Shrieked  “Light! Light! Light!”

Jumping up and down as we passed by.

I watched the blazing ball, pointed to it,

Screamed its presence into my world

Until the wonder was lost to view.

Then I saw more lights.

They grew larger, smaller, large again.

I wanted to touch them,

Pull their brightness into my hands

But they were beyond my reach.

Long years after

I would learn

That I had pointed to a neon globe

Atop a seaside hamburger palace,

The glittering blue Pacific all around.

It was dusk, and harbor lights

Were beginning to appear.

The war now over, great gray battleships

Were plowing through the swells,

Slowly coming into port

To bring the sailors home.

But knowing these peripheral details

Did not

Could not

Change the mystery or magic

Of what I’d seen.  That light

Would continue to shine through my days

And dreams, clearing away the darknesses

That later would come,

The biggest, brightest thing

I’d ever seen, 

Or ever would.

Author of five books of poetry, Carol Coffee Reposa has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, along with three Fulbright/Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the Voices de la Luna editorial staff, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.