Sudden from the sky today
Music my eyes alone could hear
White notes like kissing lips
Like cotton buds for bruised hearts
Sudden from the sky today
The world went from many hues
To that of only white
I stood amaze before the sight
Like Drake at Darien
Or Columbus when his Indies rise
From sapphire seas to green his eyes.
I touched the fragment of the clouds
The cold, cold, body of beauty white
And fled the numbness of my soul
The austere cold, white thing
Of which the childhood preacher sings
When heaven was tomorrow
And America was today
A place to walk on streets of gold
And because I was guest
In layers of clothes they swaddled me
While I stood looking at the tree
Covered white like leprosy.
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