stillness moved  the  air,
   and it was neither a lark nor a flower in my hand
but the Earth within the trees that unmoved
   and the hand that unrest. is it not that petals our folly
and that nothing are we when we live? are we
               not our own brookwater
   which silence metastasizes
       a source or a dart of water
falling  and  falling?
is darkness solely our own light?
  is it not the shadow that we carry in night and day
   but the weight of our own darkness?

so much the weight of our living
  that we, amongst ourselves, are but stone atilt
    on a river – the birds sit well against
the taciturn afternoon and all the homes
   transfixed in wonderment as though we recall
our first storms in the eyes of the old
   and the debris the hand that has carried us
through, something the wind still is a mother
    or a father, gently motioning through the world.