The Golden Light

  
The Golden Light
  
The western sun, with slanting rays, has struck
The treetops with its wash of golden light,
Set backlit leaves aglow against the blue –
And all the shades of green intensified…

We spend our lives enclosed within our rooms,
Whose walls and ceiling shield us from the sky.
That sun and shade can alter human moods,
Is evident on such a day as this...
  
A summer afternoon, in late July,
With August almost here, and so the sense
Of a season fleeting, like a little bird
That’s perched – but leans and tenses to take wing…
  
I sweep the leaves, and even more the bark
That splits and falls from summer’s growing tree.
A little while, it has, to grow and stretch –
To drink of sun, before the season ends…
  
How different, the views we hold of sun,
Of clouds, of rain, of cold and warmth,
Depending on our birth and domicile
At latitudes and altitudes on Earth...
  
But here, in a zone that’s termed as temperate,
I wait, all winter long, through snows and cold,
For spring – and then for summer’s dreamy time,
And even for the days of sweltering…
  
And yet, I’ve learned to flow as a season goes,
Adjusting to the lengths of day and night,
And finding, in the seasons, every one,
The things of beauty that can give delight…
  
And so, I sweep the leaves and bark – and pause
To wonder at the glory up above,
To breathe the season in – and breathe it out,
This summer afternoon in late July…
   
2014 July 28th, Mon
(2nd stanza added July 29th)
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York