Driving towards dawn
in an ocean of indigo light,
I saw Venus ahead
so bright harbinger
of our daystar
and above her,
Jupiter, shining far.
Suddenly I understood
just where we are,
as if I had been traveling
for more than sixty years
without a map, never sure
what day, what country,
what language,
and a door opened in the sky
to show me.
We’re riding a ball of rock,
circling with other rocks
a daystar so beautiful
we cannot look upon it direct
but must see it shining
on the faces of our neighbors.
It is a larger map than I am used to,
and I am smaller even than I thought,
but that does not diminish
the glory
of that shining path we follow,
all of us together.
Let’s stop our quarreling and shoving
and take stock
of just exactly where we are.
—
© 2012 Susanne Donoghue