Palaces in the Mist

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Does heaven appear for a moment

there in the rich, red line of the horizon?

Or perhaps the random patterns of firefly light

flashing against the brush act as streetlights

leading us through the purple twilight roads,

guiding us gently to a better country?

As if the very world is only stain glass,

and color springs with a little splash of light!

And what about all these shadows,

the thumbprints in the clouds, the veins

in the rivers, in the leaves, the evidence of God,

when the day dawns so bright and gleaming

that it seems suffering has blown far out to sea?

The very faces of heaven appear

within that line between the earth,

the sky, and our own hooded eyes.

The world turns just so for a moment

when an unexpected burst of sunbeams

whitens the curtains, when a different

kind of silence settles into a dark room

while rain steaks against a window,

almost as intimate as tears.

Suddenly, the place where the shadows stem from

rises like a palace from the morning mist below.

How do I already know the gates will be open?