The Light I See..   



in the play of my elements: water and earth
movement and meadow, marsh and light
so the sky reflects in the collecting pool
where the wine-dark mushrooms
guard their ears as this season’s Ulysses
shoulders the singing grasses aside

to the light I see

in earthly radiance freezing as with steady
shadow the slow heron’s head cock’s
the white bird flowing forward
whose toes stretch into the water for earth
beneath the green cage of this marsh land
where a bronzed tree frog waits, all eyes

on the light I see

in flickering gossamer--the glint of wings
flutters the marauding forktail
to the spike of its perch and hungers
that linger in the silent light of the marsh
and how the evening primrose spears
out of the rich springtime soil

in the light I see

the newly-trapped leafhopper on its dawn web
slung between impossible heights of green
at autumn when the last sunflowers flag
lifting their spent heads as offerings
to the unmindful, mating butterflies
life renewing in the deadest of languages

and the light I see

as the blue-winged teal slide away
into the willow tangles, less from fear
than cautious of our knowing each other
too well in this prevailing
but lengthening light
I see.