Imagine (just for an allegory's sake)
A group of sunrays were endowed with sight,
With hearing, smell, taste, touch, as humans are,
And as they were beamed and guided, each in its place,
Each inseverable from, dependent on, its source,
A vast assemblage of storm cloud approached
With menacing glower, wind-hurled and lightning-rift,
Appearing to eclipse, in direst dark,
Impenetrable, all that before was luminous.
Imagine (for the allegory's sake)
These rays cry out in terror at the blast,
And (as one in a nightmare faces doom)
Huddle despairing, blinded to believe
Themselves quite lost, identified with the cloud;
Tasting the bitterness of the wind, and numbed
By stinging spindrift, bereft of warmth and home.
Imagine (plain now its significance—
This dream, this allegory of mortality!)
That some among them, even as you and I,
Seemingly bent, refracted, and unmoored
From the sustaining harbor of their cause,
Yet retain steadfastly true consciousness,
Not swerving from their anchorage in the sun,
And, voices lifted to all, cry clear and loud:
Inseparable from light, fearless, unbowed,
Refuse identification with the cloud!
