Young Poets Look Past Horizons to Sun, Moon, Stars

Horizon is a lovely word, much used in poetry and song. (“Beyond the blue horizon. . . . “) It has a metaphorical as well as a literal meaning. We use it without hesitation.

Yet, like so many words in everyday parlance, if we are asked to define it, we find we cannot, at least not very well.

Try it yourself, before you look it up in the dictionary.

My effort turned out to be uninspired: Horizon: The point where the Earth appears to end.

Not very poetic, to be sure; but fairly accurate.

Webster’s New World defines it as follows: the line where the sky seems to meet the Earth.

That is really not satisfactory. From my window on Mt. Washington, the sky meets the Earth on the surrounding hills. But those hilltops do not appear to be the end of the Earth. One thinks of horizons as flat, like the sea.

New World’s second definition is metaphorical: the limit or extent of one’s outlook, experience, interest, knowledge. (“Travel broadens one’s horizons.”)

I don’t know how the Flat Earth Society explains horizons, because we know that if we move toward a horizon, it moves on ahead of us, mile for mile; the Earth never comes to an end.

Children understand the word at an early age. Asking her fifth graders to define horizon is an annual exercise for Joan Perkins of Rancho Vista School in Rolling Hills Estates.

She has sent me a batch of her present class’s definitions with this observation: “Some children know exactly what it means, but so many have a vague idea, and so they wax poetic. These are the ones I enjoy.”

Perkins says her pupils wrote the definitions in class, without help.

Kendra Livingstone waxed poetic: “To me the horizon is a line in the sky which always holds something beautiful. It’s the sky just stretching out before you, on and on. It can hold stars, moons, the sun, birds, airplanes, planets, sunsets, sunups. Isn’t it beautiful? The horizon is the sky, the sky is space. There is no limit to space, sky and you!”

Stephanie Luther also let herself go: “A horizon is a goal that never stops. A feeling of eternal space within your soul. Day and night. Night and day. On it stretches never ceasing. No matter how far you walk, or how long you run, you will never reach the horizon.”

Almost all the definitions identified horizon with the sun setting in the ocean. That, evidently, is because the pupils live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, where the sun setting in the ocean is a daily phenomenon. What would pupils in Iowa see? The sun setting in cornfields?

Darren Marcz imagines that the sunset is accompanied by a moment of silence, as if the Earth stood still. “What I think horizon means is when the sun is going down over the mountains and the sky is light blue and the clouds are pink and everything is really silent as this is happening. Also no planes are flying in the air. Also the birds are following the sun as it goes down. This is what it means to me in my own words.”

Maggi Stoker imagines the same phenomenon: “A horizon looks very pretty to me. A horizon is full of colors and rainbow dreams. As the sun goes down it seems quiet, as if everybody stops to watch it go down. I know I do.”

Indeed, who can keep his eye off a setting sun?

John Eugene sees something that the Flat Earthers don’t: “Horizon to me means the level of the Earth as far as the eye can see. It is something that goes on forever without stopping. It is the place where the day starts and ends. I could travel my whole life and never reach it.”

Mike Horn’s definition was starkly practical: “I think that there is not any horizon, because if you walk to where you saw the horizon you will see another one.”

Maryam J. Zomorodian’s definition is simple and descriptive: “To me, a horizon is a magical line that divides the sky from the land or water. It is magical because there is no land and water above the horizon and there is no sky below the horizon.”

Kei Takahashi’s definition is simple and prosaic: “A horizon is a place where you see the sky meet the ocean or land.”

Sarah Cross also is basic: “I’m sure a horizon is where the land as far as you can see is met by the sky.”

I’m distressed by Tara Cukingnan’s definition. “What I think a horizon is: When the sun comes up or goes down on a beautiful morning or night. I have never seen a horizon in my life.”

Will someone please take that girl to the beach at sunset?