after Henry Vaughan

The second time it was that smaller light

a flashlight flickers, battery almost dead

but these mazurkas lit up the Western sky

each instant panoramic, grace dechained from asking,

the declaration of a wish fulfilled

such as the full moon scatters with its silence

on the darkest dark waters at summer’s end.

The first time I experienced it in Braille

though I’m 20-20 with glasses and the shell

I stopped to reach along the beach stood still

seconds before the ground under my step

curved outward, the surface of another world.

I was the shell and on the shell.

In the interior I whorled, my own echo

my soul, the shell. There was an angel,

a fistful of wings. I’ll have to tell you

the rest tomorrow. When you’re more receptive.