Envelopes of Light

At the sign of the times
He hesitates to navigate his course
His rite of passage
Up the stream of consciousness to find its source

She watches him go
A sentinel behind venetian blinds
Keeps the home fires burning low
Like a vestal virgin waiting in the night

And clinging to the highway
Like a baby to the breast
The distance feeds his urgency
And his dreams just do the rest
When he's down so dark
She mails him little envelopes of light

Cicadas in the mist
Are rising from a whisper to a roar
The way silk dresses hiss
As ballroom dancers glide across the floor

He's felt the ambience of God
Like a heat mirage on the highway
But the closer he comes
The more it seems to slip away

Just out of reach
A single treetop peach
He's stretching for with all his might
And somewhere in his heart
He comes across an envelope of light

Driving down the road
With a feeling that he can't identify
A scarecrow is hanging
Like a crucifix against the thorny sky

Three days and nights
In the belly of a whale
Three days and nights
In a perfect hell
Then like a phoenix bird
Rising in an envelope of light

And when he's down so dark
He gets these little envelopes of light