A joy like sorrow

[From: "The Last Journal of Gwyllyn"]

The world is brown beneath the sky
and stark against such vivid blue;
a fragile breath is shaking through
the barren branches stretching high.

The hills that dwell out in the west
are burning now with orange fire,
fading flames of another pyre
built for day at night's behest.

The first stars and the rising moon
witness the dying of the day,
the conquering of the golden ray
which blazed so radiant at noon.

But a joy like sorrow finds me here
and dawns on me in dim twilight;
the darkness shines with hidden light
and speaks with silence in my ear.

For now I know I was never the one
who sought to pierce the skies above
and who quested for eternal love:
in myself I would have not begun.

But seeking, questing, comes a bliss,
serene and simple in the night,
through the tangled shadow-light,
to give my weary soul a kiss.