There is one more story about my time at Lamoine State Park that I'd like to share.
My first morning at Lamoine, I carried my coffee and my journal and a small book of poetry down to the rocky Maine shoreline at sunrise. There was a dense fog but the air was warm. Everything was still, except a few large splashes far off across the bay, likely from a harbor seal or porpoise. I couldn't see the anchored sailboats that I knew were only a few hundred yards away. No one else was stirring quite yet - neither on the boats nor in the campground behind me. The air smelled briny and lovely.
I settled in, sitting cross-legged on top of a rock. I sipped my coffee, and started to read a few poems.
When driving toward Maine the day before, I had been broody and moody and sad. So I had stopped for some retail therapy at a used bookstore. I picked up this book of poetry by Rumi.
None of the poems were making much sense to me, but that's often the case on my first read-through of any poetry. For whatever reason - whether it was the age, subject matter, translation, cultural differences, my numbskull brain - I was struggling. I was just about to give up and then I read this....
The Guest-House This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
The poem hit me square in the chest. I read it again and again. Across the years, through the translation, crossing all cultural differences, piercing through my numbskull brain - BAM!
And then I looked up. And I saw that the fog had taken the shape of a rainbow.
Evidently this is called a fogbow or a ghost rainbow. I did not know that at the time. I had never seen anything like it before.
A ghost rainbow is rarer than a regular rainbow. The water droplets in fog are smaller than in rain, and even smaller in a fine mist. So when the sunlight hits the mist, it diffracts differently, without color, but still forming a pale and wide arch.
The timing was ... sublime. I was experiencing a poem that spoke to me, at the same time as experiencing a magical moment in nature.
I forgave myself for the previous few days. For being human. Those human days are not only necessary, they are a gift to be treasured - a guest to be welcomed. "He may be clearing you out for some new delight."
The mist burned away. And what was left was a beautiful August day in which to be human yet again.
Sojourn on!
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