The Sun

Today the Sun stands at the center of its own house and asks nothing of you but that you be visible. Whatever you have been carrying in shadow may be set down in the open air; the light does not interrogate, it simply falls. This is the undimmed yes — clarity that arrives warm rather than sharp, and warmth you have earned by walking a long way through less generous weather. The cost is exposure. To be lit is to be seen entire, the flaws included, the old scars catching brightness like everything else. Let them. Nothing true dissolves in daylight. Say the plain thing plainly, and stay a while in the warmth.

The Sun stands at the center of every orbit and today it keeps its face half-turned. Light is not gone; it is behind cloud, behind a shut door, behind your own held breath. You may notice how often you postpone gladness — until the work is done, until you have earned it, until the room agrees. That postponement is the cost. The gift is subtler: warmth that does not need witnesses, a small private yes spoken to yourself in an unlit hour. Let the day be dim and still yours. What ripens under cloud ripens slowly, and keeps.