Classic Poem

How the sky has cleared this morning!
the blueness spreading like a netted veil.
So Valmiki's heart, like this sky, was cleansed
when Rama's dawning came.
The heavens speckle briefly with the crane's blood
and the compassionate verse
comes as a wave, a breath of that sky.
The bird regards this dawning as a festival;
the day-wandering sun is rising,
burning away to gold as it flies.
Toward the human future a finger points
from a tree's hand—an era quivering in the East.
Day speaks in a little voice—listen with care:
the web of the heart resounds.
Brahma, who envisioned all creation,
forms to an eastern diamond, turns dark
and disappears.
A clear flock of cranes floats in brightness,
stirring the tender wing of joy to life's rhythm.
On the tree-top the ray like a bird
came first to settle,
sang a music of secret rainbows
and slipped away.
With a whir the bird inside me
begins to move its wings.