Strange Light

Driving through fields and fields of identical white gravestones today looking for a funeral we were late for. The Long Island National cemetery for Veterans was eerie in a very strange January light. Spring weather and late fall afternoon sun at 11:00 a.m. Heavy sick feeling driving through football fields of dead soldiers. When I was a kid afternoon sunlight would sometimes make me soul sick, for lack of a better term. Today it happened again and I was not happy to make its reacquaintance.

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

by Emily Dickinson