Arising

After Unclouded Day

I find the hidden place
in the wildflowers where the wind
sighs down from the deep
pine hills and breathes

through the valleys where the blossoms grow
thick and the air is damp. The earth
rests cold beneath my fingers
as I sink into the tangled embrace of soil

and grass. The sky is restless and gray,
ragged clouds scattered across a dusky
canvas, torn relics of the storms
of yesterday. But here, where silver dew

kisses clusters of primroses
and yellow cowslips sway
to distant murmurs of the brook, I catch
the whispers of the wind. I see the gloom

begin to tremble all across the hillside
from the glimmer stirring in the East. I glimpse
a golden warmth swelling into the shadowed
wilderness — the promised hope arising.

By Noel Vanderbilt