Before life’s shrine

In the wee hours of an early April night,

I looked up and held my eyes to a lovely sight,

The velvet darkness turning to pearly grey,

I watched the ball of fire, yellow bright,

In the deep blue sky sending off its warm rays.

Jagged rocky slopes mottled with snow,

Defying the imagination of amateurs and pros;

By quirks of nature, barren winter landscape

In the offing reflects its heavenly glow,

with awe, we gaze yet gaze trying to escape.

The crackling wood stove burning fires,

Warming the abode for lads, dames and sires,

Dancing lazily to the ticks of the minute,

Filling the hearts with hopeful desires,

Adding to the sunrise looming in the inset.

Sun, rain, hot and cold is how life shows,

Day in and day out we wonder where life goes,

With peaked mountains and steep valleys,

Brazen swords, deadly spears and aimed bows,

At our small world for which we care to dally.

Awakened to taut pain and forlorn feeling,

Sun and rain are life’s only floor and ceiling,

Nevertheless, I claim happiness to be mine,

In life’s sunshine, rain, ups and downs dealings.

And as a pilgrim I knelt before its shrine.