This day arrives in softened gold, in quiet light that lingers long,
As though the earth itself had learned the measure of a gentler song.
No crimson flare nor trumpet’s cry attends this tender, chosen hour,
It comes instead like early spring unfolding petal, leaf, and flower.
The air lies warm upon the skin, though February waits outside,
With silver frost upon the fields and winter pressing far and wide.
No hurried pulse, no trembling storm confined within the waiting chest,
For in your nearness, strangely so, the season seems itself at rest.
Though bare the branch and pale the dawn beneath the year’s most fragile sun,
A gentler climate stirs within, as if some softer spring begun.
I had not thought that peace could dwell so close to something bright and new,
That calm might bear so clear a flame, yet never scorch the sky in view.
No vow is spoken to the wind, no promise carved in hurried art,
Yet something in the hush between has quietly altered where I start.
The world retains its shape and sound, its turning tide and shifting air,
Yet moves with kinder harmony when I discover you are there.
If this be what the first of days devoted thus to love may bring,
Not fevered blaze nor reckless fire, but warmth that makes the spirit sing,
Then let it come without acclaim, without the need for grand display,
For in this quiet, golden hour, my heart has found its place to stay.
And should the seasons turn again with sterner winds across the land,
I shall recall this quiet hour, though few may truly understand,
How light did not demand the sky, nor seek the world’s command,
It simply touched till all within grew steady at its hand.