Blue Images in Sunshine

By Joseph Kent

High in the blue sky, their wings transparent,
the color of sky, they fly near the sun,
sleep on the wind…
—Joseph Kent

In an expressive collection of contemporary poems, Joseph Kent allows others an enlightening glimpse into his mind as he lyrically reflects on the ever-changing world around him.

Kent, a seasoned poet, shares verse that explores a variety of themes that include the cloudscapes above a city seemingly out of step with the rest of the world, the friendship between a young couple on a beautiful spring day, a changed environment after a long drought ends, a wild snow goose who yearns for a mate, and a scenic walk on a magical day that inspires deep reflection about what guides the future.

Blue Images in Sunshine shares a compilation of poems that intertwine the beauty of Earth with the soul of man as he re_ ects on all there is and all there can be within a spectacular world.

The poems swirl in and out of things, always bearing a spiritual presence. [Kent’s] poems are hinges around which humans swing to close and open the doors of perception …We come to life in these poems of greater being.

—The Book Reader

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532025297

Joseph Kent

Joseph Kent was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies, with a graduate degree from Antioch University. He lives in San Francisco, and has been published in magazines, quarterlies, journals, and anthologies, including Collaboration, Mother India, In The Company of Poets, California State Poetry Quarterly, The Irreversible Man, and New Poets Anthology. Flowers of The Sun is Joseph Kent's third published book.

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Copyright © 2017 Joseph Kent.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2528-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2529-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909914

iUniverse rev. date: 03/04/2019

Contents

Acknowledgments

Sun Clouds

Easter

Blue Image

Day Of Siddhi

Illumination

White Haze

Drought’s End

Autumn

The Wild Goose

A Special Place

Sunlight

Christmas Mist

Nisus

Winter’s Eclipse

Warm Light

Aurelia

Blue Grace

Embrace

Vijnana

El Niño

Starry Night

Lamp

The Season of Light

Saint Patrick’s Day

Vedapuri

Quarry Lagoon

Savant Passes On

Nirvana

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors of Collaboration magazine, in which some of these poems first appeared: Blue Image, Nirvana, Easter, Illumination, White Haze, Nisus, Vedapuri, Quarry Lagoon, and Day of Siddhi. Other poems have appeared in Mother India and In the Company of Poets: The Season of Light and Starry Night.

Several poems (Drought’s End, The Wild Goose, Sunlight, Warm Light, and Blue Grace) have also appeared in my book Flowers of the Sun. In a limited edition, Vijnana appeared in Streams (San Francisco: Sunlight Publishers, 1996).

The world is here to manifest the unmanifest.

—Sri Aurobindo

Om Purno Ham Visiva Prem

["I am existence, being in its

integral fullness, the spirit

of cosmic love."]

—Mother’s Mantra

Sun Clouds

In the splendid, teeming city of San Francisco,

noise of the market was loud but pleasant, the din

of the city receded into the darkness.

A town quite out of step with the rest of the world

in this very city rising on the horizon

this bright morning, buildings stretched into the clouds,

the thicket of skyscrapers stood against the sky.

Clouds towed their shadows over the hills. He squinted

at the white clouds sailing calm and stately overhead.

The clouds had rifted enough to allow the red sun

to shine its head through the morning sky.

The distant cloudscapes shifted slowly, waded

through the swirling fog. The misty atmosphere

rolled and churned around him.

He watched the slow-tumbling clouds wiping up

spilled sunlight, entranced by the ever-changing

panorama of fantasies as a cloud crossed

the spring sun.

Warmth now flooded with the golden light

of winter, the late March day livened by a warm

breeze, the happy harbinger of spring’s arrival.

The gray wintry day yielded to the heat

of spring, and dawned misty and unseasonably

warm under the brilliant blue of a March morning

stunningly bright.

Daylight had begun to take on that still golden hue,

and the perfect afternoon slowly ripened,

slowly faded …

He let his mind flow a subtle, intimate connection,

a passage of great significance. Becalmed in the bright,

windy weather, the wind told its own ghost stories;

the puddle shivered in the wind, meadow grass

rippled whispering.

Smelling the fresh harbor wind, he looked up.

The sky was a stark, unexplorable throng

of blue. Why is the sky blue? He gazed up into the sky’s

yellow haze