“In the morning when I wake”

A poem from the archives that tries to capture some of the emotions I feel while listening to the eternally wonderful remix “Glow Worm Jim.”

In the morning when I wake,
I lift my eyes, I raise my arms:
What’s the ground to me but the soul’s battlefield?
Light is streaming through the door;
The sun is shining as the sea
Beneath the earth’s approaching dawn.

In the morning I am feather-light.
I greet the grass;
The wind ties my hair in knots.
The trees stand guard against the demons of the air.
I rise, my feet inches from the ground.
“Up!” I shout. “Up, beyond!”
The day’s fingers stretch to grasp me.
The orderly designs of man fall away
In perfect squares of manufactured bliss.
Thunder-clouds crown my head;
The birds unfurl like a cape;
My hand is gaudy with rings of rain.

Soaring, I walk the path of joy.
Soaring, my beleaguered beliefs in God sing psalms.
Soaring, my burden is eternal-light;

And when again I reach the ground,
Still I soar,
Though weighted by the cross of gravity:
For what hold has the grave for He
Who rises with the sun?