Sunlight

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by Jim Harrison



After days of darkness I didn't understand

a second of yellow sunlight

here and gone through a hole in clouds

as quickly as a flashbulb, an immense

memory of a moment of grace withdrawn.

It is said that we are here but seconds in cosmic

time, twelve and a half billion years,

but who is saying this and why?

In the Salt Lake City airport eight out of ten

were fiddling relentlessly with cell phones.

The world is too grand to reshape with babble.

Outside the hot sun beat down on clumsy metal

birds and an actual ten-million-year-old

crow flew by squawking in bemusement.

We're doubtless as old as our mothers, thousands

of generations waiting for the sunlight.

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Hey, thanks for your thoughts and your time:>)

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