I think the sun is a flower,

That blooms for just one hour.

― Ray Bradbury, All Summer in a Day

Natural Light

You are winter.

Soft mist and bare trees

smoke billows over brown hillsides

air heavy with cloud –

white and lifeless,

you hold darkness,

windy mountain roads,

hairpin turns,

music loud,

a cigarette burns through your tired fingers,

hair like a whip,

a curtain of sleek black

obstructs your view.

You are winter.

Long days indoors,

no natural light

books and pages torn, strewn

words and notes,

harmonies and battle cries,

formulas and the pursuit

of quiet.  Pills spill and you

search and search,

up all night,

you sing to the bare sky,

sing to the frozen river,

sing through another season.

In March the sun begins to return,

you’ve survived again.

Daffodils and daylight,

green grasses blaze,

and one Saturday, you

hear your name,

walk quietly down the stairs,

past the pages taped to stairwells,

litter of guitar picks,

boxes of Nicorette,

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,

back issues of Rolling Stone,

cracked jewel cases, scratched CD’s,

a single white sock,

and breathe in the spring,

carefully loop the rope around the rafters.

The angel of the morning is calling out your name

smooth movements

you’ve done this so many times before

The angel of the morning is calling out your name

and you know then

the pierce of sunlight from beneath the closed door

the clean scent of dew moving in around you

the eternal warmth of spring.

***