Ode to a Great Heart

The light returns to us who wait for it, at the end of a long cold night.

The quiet creeps back, of trees and the sky, all the colors of spring and the smell of flowers lowered in the sunlight.

Come back, come back, bright heart, come back to the wilderness.

Where it all begins, we want to listen to the wind, to the streams, to the whispering leaves, as we felt it before, long ago, deep in the days of boyhood, when we dreamt of freedom, we dreamt of life, in the trees and the rivers, we dreamt of anything but sorrow and stillness.

Let it come, let it shine, let life’s wonder be a light against the shadows. We are waiting, we are alive.

• Jack Kerouac

• Jack Kerouac