When That Radiance Breaks

And after storm it spreads across the sky
To light the upper reaches,
How an unseen sun can halo charcoal-hollowed clouds,
Those huge, sky-dominating hands, still dandling
Bits of blue between their empty palms.
Then watch it throw bright shafts between their fingers,
Watch it slant and stream, just see it shine, rejoicing sight.
And how it radiates along a lustrous line,
A golden glitter in a galaxy’s glass eye
That glances earthward through the drifting clouds.

That fundamental triad -- cloud, sky, sun -- sounds deeply
Over earth from high to low, from low to high.
Its silent splendor resonates, breaks in upon an inner ear,
Is echoed there in clear and flowing rhythm,
Hidden as the sun, as deeply felt. Below the mind it runs,
And soothes the spirit, lifts the heart,
Leaps up within the soul. And soul leaps up, rejoicing,
While the body broadens stride to match sun’s slow,
Serenely-measured pulse that mirrors

A slow eternal pulse, the music of the spheres,
The harmony that bears the hallmark of the heavens,
Perfect consonance, the quiet cadence
Of some greater, unseen, slowly-circling,
Slowly-shining sun. Sometimes, perhaps,
It sleeps…and then it wakes.
And when it wakes, and when it yawns and stretches,
Then its yawn and stretch become a day like this,
A day when sun’s vast breath and sun’s raised arms
Become a singing and a brilliance
And, on earth, a shouting and an exaltation.

And when that happens, then to be above those clouds,
Stand centered in the circle of the rainbow,
Casting cosmic shadows back,
And face that sun, that incandescent prism,
Feel its power flow from eye to gleaming eye,
And hear in sun and soul a singing,
Know the sheer unclouded brilliance of one’s being
And in exultation raise a shout of gladness
When that radiance breaks!