Clouds overhead
but light seeps at every corner;
aspens in the grey fog
collect it and spin
a fabric of blazing filaments.
Then sky clears
and every golden sapling
at once enkindles,
initiating its apotheosis
into the autumnal glory of the sun.

Around a turn of the hill,
the sky soars in a vasty blue
and the fallow fields
fling out their finest silken airs
to celebrate the morning coming on.
Slanted, tender rays
catch these filmy mists,
paint them snowy white,
weaving a bridal veil
for the old earth’s still romantic heart.

From a mile away,
the rolling hills appear monochromatic
under a cloak of low clouds,
harvest gold and chocolate soil
blended to a single tone.
One finger of the sun
searches down through the shroud,
not to wake more color,
but to gild each dewy surface
with an appearance of self-illumination.

Smooth grey mists
ring the mountain tops,
but one valley in the midst
dreams of another world
under a blanket of light.
Vibrant as emerald,
occasional gold flares
embroider its pine-clad flanks;
it seems a tiny sample
of a tapestry too large to read.

Each vision is diaphanous,
passing in an instant
to be replaced by the next,
and both are forgotten
after an hour in the general chaos of living.
Still they and others wind themselves
into a Heraclitean river,
never the same and yet itself forever:
a changeable light,
which mirrors the face of eternity.