(Villanelle)


It takes patience to wait for the perfect light.
Glance away and the image can disappear.
And sometimes the background isn’t quite right.

The moment missed is like a face out of sight
That against all logic we hope will appear
From around a corner, bathed in perfect light.

Or a pause in the music on a moonlit night
When hesitating lips touch, and love leans near,
But voices whisper that something’s not right.

Technology offers consolation in its sleight
Of hand:  Digitally correct the analog here
And now, counterfeit the perfect light.

Yet we want more than the mastered byte.
We want the flash between the waiting and the souvenir,
The instant when self and spectacle fuse, reality felt right.

And so we hold on to what’s passing out of sight,
The collision between soon and too late, the sheer
Thread connecting to the perfect light
In which the background is precisely right.