nine

While shadow flag flickers on the freckled stone wall
where shadow crow convenes with its caster
unwinding on the steep sunny slope, old oak
left alone to express our better nature.

Now beetle climbs the grassblade tower
gone with glinting eye upon its back, and we are back
inside the tangled neurons of the old king’s crown
hopping twice to divine the right moment for flight
in a silvernecked flash with a single ha! of pointed laughter.

The apparition of a spider upon this page, and another
weaving silk through the fine wool threads that leave my jumper
sunshot. Bumble and honey read the magnetic memories
of dandelion and daisy, searching for the least remembered ones.

I should like to put a blanket on the noise of the traffic
to wander at the quiet ways, losing count of the days.
This hill-rimmed bowl that brims with sound
I should like to empty out, for it’s an old shape
and near to silence a haunting resonates:
those patterns beneath all that decorates.

I behold the high cloud, standing so still just now
it transfixes even time. But I must bend to write this line
and things change.