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1
Swallows dip and swerve
under dark overhangs
and water drips
from those green walls,
slips down the tip of a fern,
as over the bronze
of a temple bell.
2
This stone is an escritoire
not unlike Mother’s
rolltop desk. It conceals
small drawers
for the storage of ideas.
It has a ledge for writing
utensils and a lamp
of great wattage some distance
above.
Often, of a late spring afternoon
someone is writing there
where the creek cools
her bare instep.
3
A wren calls
with a voice so like water
water might do well
to learn her song.
Diminuendo
is her domain.
4
Translucence—
the condition of first leaf—
light
intersecting a lattice
that is all
but nothing—
from this, depends
a planet.
5
Those dry bronze
leaf covers of the beech tree
sprinkle the forest floor.
And the litter from the tulip
poplar—orange-striped
bits of saffron.
Meanwhile, in the canopy,
a silver maple
completes its mosaic.
6
Autumn will flower in its own way—
less and still less,
the concision of what is.
—Marc Hudson
Reprinted from Silk Road Review.