Hail Sun – behold our Festal
Garments – the Fire in our Words²
Our Self and the Poem are One – and
Our poems, though the makings of our
Self, are no less the Makings of the Sun³
The orb of the Earth is Lighted Brighter
And Brighter as it turns until at last there
Is a particular moment when the eye sees
The Sun and so when the Soul perceives God⁴
We’re Sun and our bodies Shine & Burn like Stars⁵
We Die, and when our Breath is done – take up
Our simple wardrobe – and set out for the Sun⁶
We, Travelers, walking to the Sun, can’t see
Ahead, but looking back the very Light that
Blinded us Shows us the way we Came⁷
Help me to Shatter this Darkness – & to
Smash this Night: to break this shadow
Into countless whirling Dreams of Sun⁸
Sun will never – save Within itself –
See Night, for the Blackness it spurts
Out Curdles to Light all around it⁹
My Soul, you’re in the Ether with
All the other Scattershot Suns¹⁰
¹ Rajiv Mohabir, Tattvamasi, You Are That
² Jean Joubert tr. Denise Levertov, April, Again
³ Wallace Stevens, The Planet on the Table
⁴ Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by James Miller in Examined Lives
⁵ Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses
⁶ Emily Dickinson, She Died
⁷ Wendell Berry, We Travelers
⁸ Langston Hughes, As I Grew Older
⁹ Eugene Guillevic tr. Denise Levertov, The Sun
¹⁰ Paul Celan tr. Nikolai Popov & Heather McHugh, Erratic