Grace Note

I wonder if I'll die tonight.
Why else would such a golden light
envelop me from off a lake
of last night's rain as I awake
on summer morning? Why the sound
of sparrow choir song around
me? Why would stormy nightmare squall
of tumbling down a narrow hall,
and growing ever darker, fight
its way up to this golden light?
And why would all the glow reflect
off glass to clear the old neglect
of buildings looming overhead,
if not dispersing lifelong dread
to let me hear a note of grace
for just a golden morning space?

But next day I awake below
a single shaft of light. And so
the grace was not a parting gift,
a lightening of bulk to lift
me up from earth, but something I
can hold within and multiply,
as long as, like some money found,
I spread the golden light around.