BY JAN HAAG
SUN
00-00-97
O Devayani, the sun shines down upon us,
high in
the sky.
Could you get much higher in the sky?
Surely, the sun is
beyond the sky --
earth's atmosphere.
What is earth's
atmosphere?
You'd think there'd be a formula,
learned in
school,
to tell us what the air is made of --
like CO2 and
H2O.
And so there must be
a very long string which says
what
air is.
And the Sun?
O Devayani, the sun is light.
Is
heat.
Is luminescence.
Is like the core of our planet.
The sun is
in my heart
as the birds wheel overhead
at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon.
As the sun goes down
the birds caw
soaring,
plummeting.
Will the sun fall?
Is there light in my heart?
Is
there light
within the volcano's explosion,
within the pattern
of
crystals
that pull out to Pele's hair? --
black rods
glistening,
made of light,
of glass.
We walk about
on
light, O Devayani,
in the incandescence
of the autumn
leaves,
translucent
where the sky penetrates
the absence of
chlorophyll,
as the birds fly into the sun,
scream their
delight
and come to rest
as light
in the golden trees.
Copyright © 2000 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
Gifts
India
Lung-gom-pas
Nothing
BY JAN HAAG