On the Sky, A Meditation

Lo! above me stretches the azure, 

Not merely sky, but a living canvas, 

Wrought not by man, 

But by the steady hand of the eternal. 

Azure melts into gold, 

And gold, 

Into the deep hush of the forest’s edge. 

The clouds 

Soft travelers in the upper air 

Linger with no purpose but to drift, 

And yet, in their aimless passage, 

They carve the shape of wonder: 

A fox, a ship, the curve of a friend’s smile. 

As the sun begins its slow descent, 

The heavens flare with a tender fire, 

Not a blaze of conquest, 

But a quiet surrender 

Each hue a whispered benediction. 

The orb dips, as all things do, 

Behind the hills I’ve come to love 

Its departure neither tragic nor grand, 

But simply true. 

And in its leaving, it teaches me to let go. 

When night unfolds her shadowed wings, 

And the stars prick holes in the fabric of the dark, 

I find myself not alone but among companions 

Each light a distant testimony 

To the vastness of being. 

The moon, serene sentinel, 

Rises not to dazzle, but to keep watch. 

And I, beneath her gaze, 

Feel no fear 

Only belonging.

O sky! 

You are no ornament but oracle. 

You remind the restless soul to rest, 

To trust the turning, the fading, the beginning anew. In your boundless silence lies the most eloquent truth: That we, too, are passing things 

And that is no sorrow.

-Leena Joshi