Light

Light

In the first morning of the world created,
on the skin of water reflected,
is the spread of a sun,
and the sun, like god, is a power
you cannot see.
Only what it lights on,
only what it touches with warmth,
and yet it always has a shadow at its feet.

Then there is the sea, the sheer weight of it,
but the lightness of its creatures,
some silver as they leap above it,
and those at the bottom
making their own light
in what would of been
night infinite, as if the sea carries no
shadows at its feet.

Then there is the light of the wood decaying
out by the stagnant pond,
where the eyes of the prey nearby,
shine in the dark, betrayed
when the deer stares one last time
to see the hunter still follows
out in the shadow of living trees.

And bodies of men at war, they say,
give off light.
One I knew fished the sea
and told me of the silver fishes falling
from the mouth of the netted one.
As if in the last breath
perhaps we give back all the swallowed,
all the taken in, and it is light, after all,
first and last, we live for, die for.
We fly toward it
like those who return from it say.

But for now, for here, we fly without will
toward it, drink a glass of it,
see it through green leaves.
There, walk toward it.
Lift it, it has no weight.
Carry it, breathe it, cherish it.

You want to know why god is far away
and we are only shadows at his feet?
Tell me, how long does it take a moth
to reach the moon?

~ Linda Hogan ~


(Rounding the Human Corners)