Alan Perry
Aurora
for Gianna Bryant (2006-2020)

In the small space at horizon’s edge
light leaps forward and back
reflecting kinetic rays. Lingering
in night-lights asleep in bedrooms
light pries open a comforting door
and shines on parents wishing
darkness away from children.
Nearby it flies through music
that swells in lyric joy
and bathes a new generation
in sunshine and growth, like trees
opening branches to reach into sky.
But when the joy seems lost
and light leans into dimming night
there comes a flash, a persistence
of vision of what glowed before.
There, light rests just above the sunset
in a home that waits for dawn
and you want to love it forever.
About the writer:
Alan Perry is the author of Clerk of the Dead, published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2020. His poems have appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Heron Tree, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere. He was nominated for Best of the Net and is a Senior Poetry Editor for Typehouse Literary Magazine.
Image: Artist’s impression of the disc around the young star T Cha by the European Southern Observatory. By free license.