Here Comes the Sun Part 3

A solar poem from Pole Shift & Other Poems

INTRODUCTION: “Resurrecting the Sun” is a three-part poem excerpted from my new book, Pole Shift & Other Poems (Ekstasis Editions 2024), one of two solar-themed poems in the book, along with “Amaterasu Awakening.” The various mythological references woven into the poem are explained in the book’s Notes on the Poems, partially reproduced here. I remember as a young poet trying to read Ezra Pound’s Cantos and being stumped by his many erudite references, which ultimately led me to abandon reading it. To spare my readers that fate, I try to include a reference section in my poetry books, since our general educational level isn’t what it once was by a long shot. And anyway, not everyone is reading the same books as me!

Notes on the Poem

In nearly all ancient cultures, the sun is pictured as a male deity or masculine principle, complementing the Earth, typically a female deity. An exception is the Japanese mythology of Amaterasu, a sun goddess. (See “Amaterasu Rising.”) Christmas itself is a conflation of the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus (the “invincible sun”).

“In ancient China, it was believed that there were originally 10 suns, all of whom were the sons of solar goddess Shiho. Each day, she would wheel one of them across the sky in her sky chariot. However, one day they got bored and decided to cross the sky together, scorching the planet with their combined heat and provoking sun god Dijun to hire an archer to teach the suns a lesson. He did this by killing nine of them with his arrows, sparing the last one only because a child stole his final arrow.”

“The Aztecs believed that they were in the period of the fifth sun, with the four previous suns having been destroyed by jaguars, hurricanes, raining fire and a great flood, respectively. The god who sacrificed himself to become this fifth sun was called Nanahuatzin, or ‘the pimply or scabby one.’ He jumped into the sacrificial bonfire and was blown into place by Ehecatl, the god of the wind.”

—Luke Doyle, “Legends of The Sun: From Solar Gods to Flying Chariots,” Ancient Origins, June 2, 2018: https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/sun-legends-solar-gods-flying-chariots-0010149

Sun God Ra in his boat that crosses the sky daily.

Resurrecting the Sun

—I—

Father Sol, what angry goddess

exiled you—and why?

How long have we taken you

for granted? Overflowing cup—

all-generous, all-giving—

garden and harvest,

fruit and wine, year after year

after uncounted year.

Face of many masks

all of one skin,

you are not above us

but come from the same sky

we do. The longing for you

hurts us so much, we stare blind

into your platinum eye.

Your power is beyond us.

—II—

Sun Archer, slaying ten suns

but one, ends their reign

of scorching terror.

Trickster child steals the tenth

arrow and O, Earth sighs—breeze

on her brow for the first time

in withering ages.

The gyro slows, tilts

on its axis—still point

before collapse, stalled

on the rim of a black hole

racing backward down

time’s myopic tunnel.

Always the collapse first,

then the stuttering renewal.

The Fifth God cut from moth-

eaten royal cloth, scarred

in the face, mediocre,

no original ideas whatsoever.

Just enough nobility to know

his best use is to give himself

to the fire—brassy shield

stamped with jaguars,

green tongues of fire,

feathers of hurricane

afloat in the air

of first frost. Dynamo

gathering heat in fists

to free the world of ice

and the blue skin of hunger.

—III—

O Gaia, O Mother,

tell your daughters,

His age is come again.

You have nothing to fear.

His orb is shimmering,

alive with seed.

Let meadows rejoice,

garland our eyes

with violet and sunflower.

Feel the pulse of this crag,

plucking wind like a guitar.

Let his eternal eye

quicken in you everything

that grows toward light.


©2024 Sean Arthur Joyce