उ
u
Fifth vowel of the Sanskrit alphabet,
pronounced like the u in put.
I was nineteen,
standing in the driveway before dawn,
thinking of Emerson’s words about the Self.
A dark blue winter Southern sky
sphered overhead. In a holly
on the hill, a mockingbird woke, flinging
grace notes, trills, chattering about the bounty
of holly berries, I supposed.
Vines, heavy with dew, draped the loblollies of the dark woods.
Then, sunlight shot through the forest,
and the vines burst into prisms of lights.
I turned around, seeing
gold, red, silver, blue
until something—
the day the world the mind my heart—
broke open.
The mockingbird flew up, singing
that we would live forever, all the words
written on its wings.
