Day 199. Thursday 1st November 2018

Heaven is Everywhere

© 2018 Steve Cook

A muffin and a mocha at Pret a Manger

Are pretty close to heaven

And I don't need sweeping vistas

Of blazing suns or the delicate twist

Of gold filigree shaped like lotus leaves

To find paradise.

Truth is, if you blink you'll miss it

And searching the broad universe

You may overlook it,

For there's heaven in a blade of grass,

A sip of wine in glass

With the sunlight on it,

Casting rainbows across your hand;

The exquisite sorrow of violins,

The cadence of a sonnet on the world's rim,

The bitter taste of morning coffee

On waking lips.

The way the trees stand tall

Under panniers of cloud,

Where the sky sits on their shoulders;

The growl of Kawasakis

In the market square,

The way the town stirs in its sleep

Where its head rests on the pillow

Of a moonlit river creased by the rain

Or the slivers of silence

Reaching like hands

Between the bars of a song.

Heaven is everywhere,

An inverse power most present

In the magnificence of mundane things.

And the source of it

Is you.