GOLDEN LIGHT

The life-affirming image in the sky that inspired this poem.

There’s a time of day
to witness nature’s crown in the sky.
One can say with some honesty
that customary mornings
oftentimes
make the magic of incantatory forms
dissipate and not quite appear
as they do around sunset.

That’s the perfect point
to catch golden inflections.
When the curtain of light
opens itself.
When the evening clouds
are in repose
and no longer believe in spreading
their day-long expanse of lucid blue.

This particular day,
my eyes could see
a final blink from the sun,
appearing without any inhibition,
like melting butter,
as if the ancestors themselves
were purveyors of this beauty.

**

Such a canvas is somber.
The crows becoming incarnates
of the departed
and those stoic cows are at leisure,
patches of pleasant white and brown
with the green around them,
as I feed them
customary portions of the day’s feast.

Witnessing all this is the river
around whom a ministry of faith
rings in evening bell tolls
and distant incantations;
a sacred geometry since ancient awakenings.

This scenery,
with the sun soft and dappled with life,
a whole lineage reminisced in prayer,
build up the laws of life
and an almost incantatory mystery
is in all of this,
a mute songcraft only heard by a few.

The rituals of the day
and a reprieve to the soul
always bathed in golden light.

***

NOTE: this poem is based on the Hindu/ Indian tradition of Pitrapaksha, in which we pray for departed elders, preparing a vegetarian feast in their name and then offering portions of it to crows and cows, in sacred consonance with them being symbols of the soul, of the mortal world.
On such a day, I saw nature mingling with the somber mood of this observation.

Hence, the photograph above that I clicked and around which I have designed this poem.

***