The Day does not begin without pain It does not sneak about swiftly It cracks It tears It breaks I should know I am the Sun Every day I rise from the East Every day returning from my nocturnal exile Every day I must split the Moon's veil So hastily thrown up To block out the colors Cutting through it brings me pain But surely nowhere near the pain it brings her We both cry out Our screams lost in the sounds of birds chirping Coffeemakers brewing Cars and trucks and people rushing The sounds of morning Without me, they wouldn't know when to start.
If you watch, you will see Set down your newspaper Pull on your pants Push aside your bacon and eggs I'll show you how a real man starts the day. It begins with the layers. The top one still Black The next, a deep Purple After that, a sensuous Indigo Below it, a pale jaundicised Yellow Under this, Pink But not a rosy clean pink A sickly pink A sickly pink Do you understand? A painful pink Each layer grows lighter Brighter with each passing second Each painful second Causing more pain than your human mind can comprehend The sky has almost finished turning Now I will attend to my mother, the Earth
I start with the Trees Pulling away their cloaks Ripping the darkness from them Turning them from dark silhoettes Back to their natural Crimson Pumpkinesque Saffronopal Or just plain Green Soon you can see everything The grass The houses The streets Soon you will see me If I can bear the pain that long But even if I can't, I must.
Now the Clouds are Pinked Dripping with that same awful, agonizing layer Weighing them down It will soon fade They will be blank in no time Free to sail the skies again Where ever the wind takes them The sky has gone from many layers to one Blended like a paint sampler You can see the Yellows Greys Whites Lavenders And that god-awful Pink again Soon there will be only Blue The most perfect Blue you ever saw The Blue you see every day Such a clean Blue Pristine And yet....
A boring Blue Untainted If you look at that Blue Every day At the Height of noon When I am highest in the sky Can you appreciate it? Can you understand my pain? Can you understand my sacrifice? Our sacrifice? For my lover, the Moon, suffers too Is it possible for your puny mind To wrap itself around the idea? Of course not.
I'm not complaining It's just, a little recognition would be nice Or if you'd wake just a little earlier And sit with me Watch me Stay with me a while.
They used to worship me, you know They called me a god Who rides a great golden chariot Who lives in a great golden palace They gave me names Beautiful names Names like Amen-Ra Hyperion Apollo Powerful names How can you argue with names like those? Oho, but you're too wise for that now, aren't you? You've evolved too far, right? You're all so terribly advanced now, aren't you? I'm only a giant ball of fire and gas Just one star among trillions, eh? Fools. So smug in your humanity But I am the Sun and I see all You cannot hide your cruelty Your selfishness Your lack of regard for other humans Humanity. Ha! Well We won't speak of that.
I'm not bitter I would gladly go on like this Will go on like this For it is my cycle And we must all follow our cycles Over and over And over again No matter how much pain it brings us Night and Day Precipitation and Evaporation Life and Death Until the end of time Even you, human Oh, yes. You too, have a cycle You'll learn that soon enough But in the meantime Look to the East