from Spring Songs (10)

10.

No moon. God has no early evening plans.
Oak and walnut leaves spread across the neighborhood,

A planet whirs like a lime between the new leaves.
A bright spot. A memory. Gone in the morning.

If there really is a time to be still it is now: a cell
splits, reforms, comes whole, continues,

is cut out, spins like a leaf into a space
of no-being, hard matter. Alone on a bed

you will suffer the speed of being observed
as from afar while the world spins, they lean away,

your loved ones, into the dark, come round again.
In the mean time, when your light winks or is blocked

by the slightest breeze against a leaf, we will know
and run with you to keep you in sight, at the speed

of the day’s suffering itself to be tracked by shadows,
and together find the time to be still.