I want to taste the golden sun
That sits so cold on this high unending plain
And over the multivariate earth
Its rays to soils unlightened bear
The sweet, lost dreams of stars afar.
Is it possible to see
From this sliver, this crescent scratch of ground,
Wherein our habitat moments pass,
The snows that never melting lie
In stony crops above the land,
That ever form this valley,
Lush with green and vine?

We chill to think that ice
Is always set upon its work
In rivulets that stream from silent breaking,
The torrents build and split the forms
That Adam marked upon his rounds,
And mineral and silt,
That long in comet bursts rained down
Crash in rage all without bounds
Upon the unsuspecting fields,
So that from the cold and void of heaven
These crystals drop and worm their way
Into all that is.

I want to taste the golden sun
And drink the bitter fruits that pass
From senses to the waiting soul
That still in night unyielding lies
Though peppered with the lights that burn
As the points, piercing and lone,
All the known perfection
In all the known lives.

Matthew Hunt is an inveterate traveler, mountaineer, and musician. He has released music as Slim Hunt, Slim Rosa, and The Iris Bell and performs regularly. He lives in Washington DC with his wife and children.