The Third Heaven

 

August 30, 2005

Because the spirit, too, knows loneliness,
disasters happen in the universe
and someone like myself, smallest of men,
finds grace, a nimbus on the wall at noon.

After the hurricane, I drove back home
from hiding out safely inside a church.
I saw downed oaks squashed across roof on roof
or telephone wires; coming down my street

I saw abandoned dogs joined in a pack
scrounging the garbage cans, I saw my house.
Nothing looked different but some scattered leaves
across the front walk: purple, blue and gold.

I knew I never had seen leaves before.
I picked up one the color of the sky.
I held it while I opened the front door.
But I was blinded. I had second sight.

Inside, no lights, no water but just sun.
Everything just as God imagined it
for me to understand my human need
of the material: nothing, everything

was essential where I was staring now.
Only one thing was clear: someone was in the room,
someone larger than rooms and hurricanes,
someone who shone brighter than any sun.

There was no word for this except the one
familiar to us all: deliverance.
What I was standing in I would call light
but it was brighter. I had my third sight.

Now, years later, I still have changing sight. 

--Peter Cooley