A Sunset Captured by a Drop of Rain

The orange sphere is racing just ahead

Of dark-gray sheets that sweep across the sky,

Collecting shades of pink and purple-red

Where rays of light impart their sun-made dye.

 

The sphere appears to touch the distant ground

And flatten, as the sheets begin to pour

Their water from above, its muffled sound

Surrounding me upon the grassy floor.

 

One cloud-borne tear falls just before my face,

Descending on the course it’s meant to fly,

And in that moment – that brief, eternal moment –

One droplet holds the sun before my eye.

Sometimes when I go on bike rides in the evening, I see the sunset to the west juxtaposed against clouds that cover the sky overhead. This poem simply imagines a magical moment, when a tiny raindrop falling from the clouds appears to contain the entirety of the sun within itself. We might draw parallels to the depths contained within the human soul, the wonder within a single moment of insightful revelation, or - to borrow the title of a book written by the Dalai Lama - "the universe in a single atom."