A few brief moments --- moments of glory:
The fading sun has caught the distant hills,
Clothed the leafless grey trees in luminescent glow,
Not ruby red, nor rose;
More subtle, more lavender mysterious,
More hushed, more holy.

Too suddenly the glow fades,
The hills resume their normal hue,
But greyer with the darkening sky.

This has been a rare glory, a transfigured world,
A flash of the eternal Yes.

But now, darkness descends
Squeezing out the glowing hues.
The splendor fades
Vanishes all too abruptly

It leaves an emptiness.
And yet ...
It also leaves a residue of glory.

The glow has gone from the hills, but not from our hearts.
There it lives on to greet the silent stars as they appear,
Heralding the affirmation that what once was still exists
In some realm beyond the stuff and substance
Of physical reality,
A place wherein the splendor is fixed for all time.

A voice says to me... I repeat it to you:
Hold that splendor
Cherish it for all time.
It is part of the eternal Yes...
As are you and I.

1975

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