Mass Pike Moment, June 2008

The pond by the side of the road
is clouded in a green-brown mist
and if I had not been stuck in traffic
at this early hour
I would never have seen that color
that may be the result of the sunlight
pouring through the green leaves behind it,
or perhaps it is caused by the oak pollen
so thick in the air that it has changed
more than my breathing, but no matter the cause
it is something I would not likely have seen
if I had gone whizzing by intent
on my eventual destination, or if I had noticed it
I might have missed its hue
and if it showed up again in my thoughts at all
I might have decided that it was mist colored,
the default silver-gray that shows up in every poem,
and it might have become a metaphor for something else
instead of standing on its own as some anomaly,
or perhaps there is no anomaly here and all morning fog
in late spring carries a shade worth noting, a shade
only visible when the viewer is halted in his progress
toward important places long enough to see it, long enough
to be content in the viewing and the knowledge
that everything that is known and believed has a loophole
in it somewhere that is large enough to drive through.