Backyard Loving-Kindness Double Octet

(6/19/17)

                        for Sandy

you & I talking over coffee, bench swing

rocking between sun & shade, the motionless

bicycle pinwheel in the garden, foxglove

flashes white facing east, purple facing west--

spider silk strung from the paperbark maple

to the rhododendron glistens, a live wire

vanishes as we turn our heads; such is light:

meanwhile we’ve each turned up in the other’s eyes

◦

daylilies blossom in an orange circle

ahead of today’s heat; the future happens:

that frame hammock streaked with the ginkgo's shadow,

a rusted songbird’s mute note on the latticed

fence rail, that glass sun with curved black metal rays

& face; clematis twines on a bamboo pole,

& prayer flags reach from there to the pear tree:

light permeates ragged fabric, thread by thread

Jack Hayes

© 2017