The Sound of the Sun

George Bradley

It makes one all right, though you hadn’t thought of it,

A sound like the sound of the sky on fire, like Armageddon,

Whistling and crackling, the explosions of sunlight booming

As the huge mass of gas rages into the emptiness around it.

It isn’t a sound you are often aware of, though the light speeds

To us in seconds, each dawn leaping easily across a chasm

Of space that swallows the sound of that sphere, but

If you listen closely some morning, when the sun swells

Over the horizon and the world is still and still asleep,

You might hear it, a faint noise so far inside your mind

That it must come from somewhere, from light rushing to darkness,

Energy burning towards entropy, towards a peaceful solution,

Burning brilliantly, spontaneously, in the middle of nowhere,

And you, too, must make a sound that is somewhat like it,

Though that, of course, you have no way of hearing at all.