RETINA

Retina

The blinding resplendent brilliant blaze of sun-firing
In the translucent window at the top of our stairs,

Lighting to my eyes glaring defects
In the polished stairstep well-walls.

And afterward, for an hourglass,
The irised rectangle of remembered light

Luminous shining
Like an euclidic spirit in front of my vision.

The 'optic mystic' nerve gleam
Of photoreceptors

Turned into images in my mind
As I trudge about the hectic scurry of day,

That brilliance of aperture at the center
Blaze-binding me

(In this pit-caved despair
Of emptiness and tragedy)

Now allegorizing---
Yes, the after-shadowed light of Transcendence

Far brighter than nature's harsh survivor'd death glare
Or the gray-dusted rituals of this culture of delusion;

Look not to this dark cavern,
But to the sun-resplendence;

Oh, the after-glowed radiance!


Daniel Wilcox
1st pub. in The Greensilk Journal, then
in selah river, a book of published poetry.