Published on: 11/3/2015
Pendant

We sat in evening light, the stillness
lingering, we thought, as we lingered—
something of the light on the table,
like us, not ready to go.

Patterns of leaves deepened
into pools of shadows, and the shadows
of trees slanted steeply around us,
dissolving roof tops, filling the street.

Time is a motion, you said. Never ending.
Memory and motion: we know what's last
because we remember the first.
I said, look at this light like a pendant

in the trees— how only as light it shines
the same as first light. Shadows gather,
you said, draw closer: light fades.
Imagine light and shadow as moment

without memory: first and last,
I said, are the same irrelevancy.
This is the moment of time passing,
you said, the flow visible as light

waning. First and last light are splendors,
I said. The flaming red and gold of sunrise, sunset,
require nothing not of themselves.
Moments, you said, passing.

Your face, turned in the sunset as though
listening, for a moment in the sunset, shone.
And so we sat, lingering, something
of the light on the table, between us.