light & shadow sutra

zinnias for all their red gold violet spectrum
beside the gray sidewalk
       appear neither glad nor sad at midday—

at midnight aspens in a ditch past your windows rustle
leaves as if rain-struck but
       no raindrops fall—last Sunday the

beads of mist on the rosa rugosa alba’s
spent blossom & I thought
        teardrops but that was another day—

today Wednesday a pair of Canada geese
paddle in the shadow of
        Burnside Bridge as the sun’s

photons kindle glints across the river as
though the water ran metal—
        Monday evening the wind chimes

outside your door strike together in bamboo
five-tone song without words ex-
        cept the words you add—

the carp thrashing iridescent in a fisherman’s
net in noon sun without
        shadows except those in my mind—

gray heron posed in Sunday’s drizzle on a
beached log like a man in a
        morning park’s fog practicing tai chi:

weight back relaxed torque spiraling through his
sinews—you recumbent on a distant
        lawn in the dark observing the Milky Way

spread out overhead a spangled map of photons &
voids referring to history &
        dreams one can’t say out loud

here in afternoon a bridge abutment to thin air &
green metal water & blinding sun
        hunkers between two ash trees

Jack Hayes
© 2015