a certain slant of light

a winter's morning

coffee

snow

a kind light

the warm silence

of a home

saturday

~

emily dickinson wrote these words some years ago.

there's a certain slant of light,

on winter afternoons

that oppresses, like the heft

of cathedral tunes.

heavenly hurt it gives us;

we can find no scar,

but internal difference

where the meanings, are.

none may teach it anything,

'tis the seal, despair,

an imperial affliction

sent us of the air.

when it comes, the landscape listens,

shadows hold their breath;

when it goes, 'tis like the distance

on the look of death.

david sylvian sings these very words in a musically sparse environment.