Gold in the shadows

There is a gold light in certain old paintings

That represents a diffusion of sunlight.

It is like happiness, when we are happy.

It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light,

              And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross

              Share in its charity equally with the cross.

       2

Orpheus hesitated beside the black river.

With so much to look  forward to he looked back.

We think he sang then, but the song is lost.

At  least he had seen once more the  beloved back.

              I say the song went this way: O prolong

             Now the sorrow if that is all there is to prolong.

      3

The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work.

One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good.

The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar.

Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good.

              And all that we suffered through having existed

              Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.

--Donald Justice

~

What once was is still there, or just about. The threads of time on the sleeves. The sound of the children playing in the yard during the recess, heard in interior corridors, off polished wood, or somewhere. And God, God further away than he's ever been you think, taking a break from it all, for a while, slouched on a doorstep somewhere. 

"Look how the kids grow" someone says. It was only yesterday.  Only the golden light is always itself, even when a faint presence on a frail autumn morning, or when hidden in the Roding's dark. Or when you read a line or see a face and remember something you'd almost forgotten.