When the Light Appears
Lento
When the Light Appears - meaning Summary
Life's Unpredictable Awakenings
This short, incantatory poem catalogs a range of human actions, desires, pains and performances—sex, grief, preaching, wandering—repeatedly returning to the refrain that understanding or revelation will come only "when the light appears." It presents life as a series of contradictory, bodily and social experiences that resist immediate meaning, suggesting a future moment of clarity or awakening that retroactively orders those experiences without specifying how or when it arrives.
Read Complete AnalysesYou'll bare your bones you'll grow you'll pray you'll only know When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You'll sing & you'll love you'll praise blue heavens above When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You'll whimper & you'll cry you'll get yourself sick and sigh You'll sleep & you'll dream you'll only know what you mean When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You'll come & you'll go, you'll wander to and fro You'll go home in despair you'll wonder why'd you care You'll stammer & you'll lie you'll ask everybody why You'll cough and you'll pout you'll kick your toe with gout You'll jump you'll shout you'll knock you're friends about You'll bawl and you'll deny & announce your eyes are dry You'll roll and you'll rock you'll show your big hard cock You'll love and you'll grieve & one day you'll come believe As you whistle & you smile the lord made you worthwhile You'll preach and you'll glide on the pulpit in your pride Sneak & slide across the stage like a river in high tide You'll come fast or come on slow just the same you'll never know When the light appears, boy, when the light appears
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