Now the November sun
catches me by surprise.
Now it dances through the lotus flower
hanging on my window pane,
and lands so gently on my shoulder
and thighs.
I feel caressed by November light.
Now I look up to see that the sun has also
Turned me into a dark typing shadow
Against this yellow wall I face.
The temptation is to turn
around, to stare right into the glowing
White drum in the milky sky.
Ah, but that just bleaches out
my eyes and leaves me blinking
blue and yellow spots.
When it comes to the sun, we’ve got so much
more of a spectacle in the moment-by-moment sideshows,
we don’t need to see what’s happening on the main stage.
I bought the lotus wall hanging – a translucent photograph
in a frame –
from a woman at a Sufi retreat center. She had magical eyes,
large and luminous.
She wrote about the lotus:
“This Lotus combines blue, white and yellow. Blue brings
spiritual energy & calm.
White gives purification and peace. Yellow gives
illumination and inspiration.
Her instructions: “Hang this flower in a sunny window and
let the light shine through bringing its special gifts to you!”
The most curious thing about the hanging is how the woman
who made it, Jeanne Cameron, photographs the flowers:
She takes all of the flowers to a special
rock quarry all the way up in Maine
where she floats them there in the water
until the sun
hits the blossoms at just the right angle.
Only at that moment, when the sun stipples the flower in sparkling points of light, does she
snap the photo.
Why a rock quarry in Maine? It turns out that
was an
accidental discovery. One day she happened to be at the quarry, and happened to notice the
flood of light sparkling in the water.
I ought to send her this poem and tell her that her lotus has
indeed brought its special gift to me.
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