A Cynic Looks Up
April 15 2024
After the storm
as the clouds began to part
I looked up
and saw the sun shining down
like a kindergartner's drawing;
beams of light
radiating out
through a mist-filled sky
like an incandescent crown
around the sun.
As if the energy of light
had materialized.
As if the gates of heaven
had opened up.
As if to say
in a time of existential stress
that this too shall pass,
just as storms
come and go.
Early spring
and the leaves had unfurled
green, fresh, firm.
Tiny water droplets
clung to them,
so perfectly spherical
and lustrously clear
they seemed to emit light
rather than reflect it.
I turned my back to the sun
and a rainbow appeared
arcing high overhead.
A child’s painting
come to life.
All that was missing
were the unicorn
and pot of gold.
I thought of Noah
being reassured
after the flood had drowned the world;
God’s pledge confirmed
that from then on, we would be spared
no matter what;
a sobering reminder
it was up to us
to judge ourselves.
Or was there nothing prophetic here?
Just a wonder of nature
among the many others;
the everyday miracles
that no longer seem miraculous
to our jaded eyes.
Who knew
that along
the preschooler had it right.
And the cynics like me were wrong;
that with our blinders on
we'd ignored the signs,
allowed despair
to crush the childish wonder
even we once felt.
A piece in today’s New Yorker contained this short description of the end of an arduous hike. Not that the article had anything to do with hiking (it was actually about the search for personal longevity — the “compression of morbidity” at the end of life). But the image sparked an urge to riff, and so I did.
My calves started to burn. I felt a knot in my back. White clouds veiled the sun, and a few ethereal rays came through. It looked so much like the entrance to TV Heaven that I half expected a deep voice to boom from above.
(No
Time to Die,
by Dhruv
Khullar
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/how-to-die-in-good-health)
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