Heart of the Sunrise

This was the first song I've ever listened from Yes (and from any prog rock band other than Pink Floyd). It happened at my friend's place, four years ago. I was 14 at the time. I was visiting for the weekend and I was left alone in the house. I had nothing to do, so I was checking up the CD collection of my friend's parents', when I came across the intriguing art of Roger Dean cover for Classic Yes. I've never had any contact with Mr. Dean's work either and I thought "wow, this guy painted something that is so alien and at the same time so real, it's like a real place that could never exist". And then I put the CD on to play. There are no words for what took place in my soul. One thing I can describe: I could not quite believe that the music I was hearing could be really happening. I had no idea music could sound that way. And while I wept, not only in joy, but from what felt like a maelstorm of light and gravity pulling strong inside my own self, something beyond anything I've ever felt to that day or since, I kept looking at the strange and familiar painting and I knew that what I was listening was the music that came from that same world. The song wasn't meant to speak of things of our world, but about that other one. Both painting and song together fromed something like a small crack in reality from which I could peek into something vastly more wonderful. And I kept restarting the song every time it ended, for hours and hours, staring at the painting, devouring each detail of it, and listening to the every new little note I could discover in the song, as if each one was a another revelation of that wonderful alternate reality that I was trying to unveil, but could only catch glimpses. I did so until it was evening, without even realizing I could have pressed the repeat button.