On a Cardinal, a Passage -- by Alex Ranieri

How like the sun the humble cardinal! And not most like, in the familial resemblance of his coat—not most like, in the joy his brilliance brings to the eye, when all else about him is drab and colorless—but most like the unbearable light of the sun, is the cardinal’s song. It comes on the ear as if that fiery orb were voiced. The invalid in bed, who has endured long hours of convulsions with her unhappy heart, awakes to find all limbo burnt away; her relief is no less due to the light which cannot be kept out by a window, to the voice which cannot be kept out by a wall—while long after the finches and the sparrows are made dumb, the sun’s voice still calls out, mournfully now, from his exile hour of dusk—and the lone traveller, who faces the long gaping night with no promise of any foothold or rest, gains some comfort from this reminder that even his future, unpromising as it is, cannot be infinite.