And there was light

These are the fields of light, and laughing air

And yellow butterflies and foraging bees

And whitish, wayward blossoms winged as these

And pale green tangles like a seamaid’s hair.

The Pea-Fields by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts

Shadows become you

in the new half-light.

Our blindness falls away

and black and white images become rainbows

on the iris of each eye.

Colours overact with so much flair

our trip through darkness

is left behind. Only sun

can hold us here, to stop and stare:

these are the fields of light, and laughing air.

We learn to love the sun,

the cast of light

which fills a room with amber

to the brim, and spills

its golden droplets one by one

as sun and shadow blend to form a frieze.

Patterns hint at memory

we cannot recall, and yet

the heart still knows the language of the trees

and yellow butterflies and foraging bees.

Tears, this first response

to touch of light and air

will carry always, salt

from the womb

and sea bed,

will spill unbidden with symphonies

of music, or of love,

the plaintive call of loons

across the lake, with lilac trees

and whitish, wayward blossoms winged as these.

Before day and night divided,

before fin found form,

finger bone connecting

to wrist bone, arm and shoulder

slipping through water like ache

through heart, the bare

skeleton of the rib cage caught

our memory in a net of dream,

left it in dark and shadow and azure air

and pale green tangles like a seamaid’s hair.