By Dan Leach

Long before the first eyes ever saw me

  Floating like a ghost upon the night,

Long before human minds even feebly

  Pierced beyond their dimly shrouded sight,

I was there, though clothed in different raiment,

  Blazing like your own, my brother sun,

Over unimagined reaches distant,

  When your infant world had just begun.

When your wise men looked upon the heavens,

  I was but another shadowy form,

That no one guessed was the same which legends

  Told of, dying in a fiery storm—

Filling all the sky with brilliant lightning,

  When a spiritual darkness covered earth,

That, though darkened minds saw only dying,

  Was the herald of my spirit’s birth!

Then I grew into a form more subtle

  Than the human eye could ever see,

Veiled as in a diaphanous mantle,

  Taunting your mind to discover me—

For within, a heart lies deeply hidden,

  Beating with a silent pulse that sings,

Hurling unseen beams across Time’s chasm,

  Like the thoughts that move all living things.

I was watching as your great explorers

  Ventured on your planetary seas,

And when bolder minds dared to discover

  Things beyond the senses’ certainties,

Waiting as you grew into a being

   That could feel my coursing, thought-like beams,

And, then recognize their higher meaning

   In your growing universe of dreams.

As with sunlight, tiny atoms quicken,

   Into earth’s vast, living harmony,

Endless, untold worlds of thought awaken

   When, at last, you grasp my mystery;

When the passion for those passing shadows,

   For the higher, unseen things, you feel,

My dark beauty will no more elude you,

   Haunting like a thing unknown, unreal.

You will someday reach beyond the limit

   Even of our galaxy’s own shore,

Spreading thought like light into some dim-lit

   Cavern that invites you to explore—

Then you will remember what first called you

   To whatever heights your spirit leads,

And I will be smiling ever on you,

   When you bend the distant stars like reeds!

Daniel Leach is a poet living in Houston, Texas who has spent much of his life fighting for the ideals of classical culture and poetry. His works have been been published on The Chained Muse, Imaginative Conservative, Society of Classical Poets and his volume of poetry, compiling over 20 years of composition is entitled “Voices on the Wind.”