solstice VI

PSALM

It’s not the sun
making the day sacred.

There have been other days,
brighter and less holy.

There have been mornings
as clear. And with no pain

of being, no sharp joy.
And if the sun

has a transparency now,
how could you feel it

were it not for the leaves
illumined to that clarity,

the white table, the rushes
by the road, in the pond,

and the jay’s body, its flash
among elms, clattering branches,

each carefully telling you
what it knows about light.

Patricia Hooper

from Other Lives © 1984