Shuttled by the morning light into the world that is,
I interred my head to the side,
Spurning the wakefulness my window spread across me
Because
the rays brought shame, and recrimination,
And all the sorry lapses among my feeble imprint on the earth.
Doubts that gathered strength each dusk in shadows of my room,
Fed all night on my sweat-drenched bed
And menaced me with the dawn.
The doubts spoke of cruelties to friend, of opportunities evaded, of outrages known only to myself.
My sins congealed in the next sun’s radiation.
So I swept the light away
Yet it forced a way in and caught me up in its fearless glow,
Its exuberance, beneficence for all nature, compression of energy.
And as the orb continued to rise,
I surveyed everything that remained in my life
That had stayed to assuage me.
And I gleamed with droplets of perspiration and tears of gratitude.
Andy Oram
July 19, 2024