To Describe the Sun

By Peter Bowden

He tried once, sitting beside her in the quiet room, where the curtains hung thick and the air felt like early morning before light. “It’s round,” he said first, and then stopped. Round was too simple, too empty of its weight. “It’s like...” he paused again, fumbling for something larger than words. She smiled in the dark, patient, her hands folded like small prayers.

He tried again, slower this time. “It’s warm in a way that makes the world begin again. It falls on your face and feels like forgiveness, even if you don’t know what you’ve done wrong.” He could see it then, the long beams spilling through pine trees, the dust floating golden in the air. “It makes the leaves whisper, and even the rivers sparkle like they’re trying to tell you something.”

She tilted her head toward him. “I think I understand,” she said softly. But he knew she couldn’t, not really. How could anyone who’d never seen the sun know what it meant to see it rise, how the world holds its breath for a moment and then exhales into color? Still, he kept trying, his voice tracing light across the dark, as if words themselves could burn bright enough to bring her morning.

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