Convicted by the Sun (Prose Poem)

(after Job 12:7-9)

Ill-tempered and cross-grained. My key off its hook. I’m out through the breezeway. Into the throes of a weekday morning. My brain deplete of dopamine, I scan my surroundings, hoping to find the inconveniences that will justify my cantankerous mood. 

Instead, my eyes are met with a horizon dyed the color of mulberries. Two-century-old oaks applauding in glee. A glistening sunrise saying, “I told the truth each morning since I dawned upon Eden. You are the one out of sync here.” 

I saw a sparrow plucked from the page of a D.H. Lawrence poem. It chirped out Morse code, which, when decoded read, “No personal tragedy is ever so great that it buys you the right to be ungrateful.”

The sun, in swift rebuke, agreed: “The heavens declare the Glory of God. The flowers are clothed in splendor. The rocks themselves are crying out. So, who do you think you are? Who, exactly, do you think that you are?”