Gold

I don’t want to make too much of this,

but because the bedroom faces east

across a lake here in Florida,

when the sun begins to rise

and reflects off the water,

the whole room is suffused with the kind

of golden light that might travel 
at dawn on the summer solstice

the length of a passageway in a megalithic tomb.

Again, I don’t want to exaggerate,

but it reminds me of a brand of light

that could illuminate the walls

of a hidden chamber full of treasure, 
pearls and gold coins overflowing the silver platters.

I feel like comparing it to the fire

that Aphrodite lit in the human eye

so as to make it possible for us to perceive

the other three elements,

but the last thing I want to do

is risk losing your confidence

by appearing to lay it on too thick.

Let’s just say that the morning light here

would bring to any person’s mind 
the rings of light that Dante

deploys in the final cantos of the Paradiso

to convey the presence of God,

while bringing the Divine Comedy

to a stunning climax and leave it at that.

--Billy Collins (1941- ), from Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems (2011)