Much I’ve made of this quaint quadriptych over the years, morning rendered in four frames, an accident of perspective and single muntin, double hung windows in Rosslyn’s parlor (aka the “green room”). Dawn breaks above the Green Mountains, above Lake Champlain, above Rosslyn’s waterfront. Two-over-two wavy glass transforms photographic facsimile into wiggly watercolor-esque mirage. Then this tea sip-stopping scene. Yesterday. Neon pink orb revealing a brief sliver as it ascended from silhouetted mountains to dense cloud over. Coy. A glimmer, then gone. An aubade aborted. Premature. Patient…
I’ve watched nearly two decades of dawns illuminate the lake this way. Each morning a wonder, a dialogue of days and nights, a reliable ritual of fire and water, rehabilitation and belonging. Each morning a cinematic reminder that our historic home, restored to purpose, brick-by-brick and board-by-board, has kept her promise to us, and us to her. Each morning the drumbeat of time’s unrelenting metronome.
Sometime soon — this year, perhaps, or maybe next — we will leave what we’ve created. I will bid farewell to this window from which I witness dawn’s unslumbering. I will relinquish the familiarity and comforting acquaintanceship to begin a new relationship with morning. So, yes, dear Rosslyn, this is another sunrise installment of our slow parting. It’s not yet a leavetaking, hastened by daybreak, nor is it a lusty lingering, denying the inevitable. As we approach the anniversary of our nineteenth year together and as we promise to practice a gradual loosening of our embrace, I’m not yet ready for goodbye.
Hence yesterday’s photograph, envisioned as a fitting illustration for a parting poem, was postponed until today. But today too I balk. So the poem’s still unwritten, not yet ready to be written. Instead, I share this confession, an aubade aborted. For now.
What do you think?