I heard once that when the timing’s just right,

there’s this green flash that flares up on the horizon 

in the exact second the sun settles on the Pacific. 

It’s some kind of optical illusion. 

But every time I pause to watch daylight slip behind the sea,

I can’t see it. 

And as the sun circles under my town and rises again over the hills, 

I wonder which time will be the time I catch a glimpse of it. 

I just keep staring out over the landscape in that second, 

waiting 

for this green light I don’t understand,

holding my breath,  

blind 

to the pink and orange and blue,

searching only for green,

in hopes to see it flash on the horizon like a vision of my future,

like the dream I keep having

in my most quiet moments

and forgetting in my tornado of directionless ambition.  

 

But in my years of waiting I’ve come to notice how much waiting itself

reminds me of my consciousness. Of my ability to act. 

The light may never come, but in the midst of waiting I find a drive to do.

The feeling is the blink of light to help me see. 

The sigh of relief to cut the strings looped through my shoulders.

The sign to guide me peacefully from my youth,

and the reminder that there is time enough for it all.