Enlightening

Still nascent dawn descends upon golden blossoms, 

generating subtle shadows, soon to evaporate like last night's dew.

Golden Helianthus rises above the gathered throng of ditch bank dwellers,

 just as she must have done for millions of years before we passed her way,

brightening some long forgotten meadow or forest clearing with her radiant reflection.

Insect rises with the dawn, 

driven not by the knowledge that first frost is only a week or so distant, 

but enlivened by a warming wave of photons, 

life-giving sparks just arrived from a hundred million miles away.

Light, 

as good a name as any, 

hurtling across and over and through a vast and ancient expanse of space and time,

spanning millions of miles in a matter of minutes, 

only to arrive in precisely this spot, at precisely this moment.

Time and space; 

the simplest of terms,

 temporal and spatial,
yet their true nature incomprehensible
to this insignificant earthbound traveler.

The complexity of the forms delights this simple mind,
as do the brilliant colors; 

blue and gold, juxtaposed so perfectly as to elicit an involuntary smile.

All is light,
electromagnetic radiation,
pure energy,
reflected into these aging eyes,
transformed;

light becomes beauty 'til now unimagined, 

born in just this moment,

 known only to me.

The senses struggle to capture each aspect, 

each blossom,

each bee;

and what fragments the senses apprehend,
the mind struggles to comprehend.

This place, this moment,

this light, these lives, 

transcend space and time,

rising to the realm of the spirit.