EFFULGENCE

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

     Earlier today, when I was worrying myself silly about some supposedly large problem, the word ‘effulgence’ floated up in my mind, and fairly suddenly there was the light of relaxation instead of the darkness of distress. It seemed, for a few moments, like all of life was actually full of brightness. Even my worries seemed strangely dazzling, as if they were shiny but harmless specks of light. I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, and the yellow walls looked luminous. I felt like I was floating in a strange kind of splendor. I saw an old, disheveled truck pass by outside, and even it seemed to glitter and gleam. For those few moments this morning, the lustrousness of life was so clear, even in the doctor’s quiet, ordinary, but oddly bedazzling office.

SHINING THINGS 

One morning 
he saw a silver coffee cup 
shining on the edge of his sink. 
Soon he noticed other shining things 
in the house. The old stove seemed 
to be living in light again, 
the mouse beside the keyboard 
was covered in a blanket of brightness, 
and his socks seemed lit up, 
by which he knew his bicycle 
would shimmer down the streets that day.