The Afternoon

Gone into white mist, the way it is in the movies,
into states whose names we don't know yet,
borders not yet thought of. Gone anyway. Dust.

So many centuries just getting up to go.
And it rains and rains. My love,
my life is turning into a list of things I used to do.

My love consoles me. Sometimes I think of her,
a bird high in the tree of the house, a river
of sunlight warm on her cheeks.

So much patience with paint, silk, the least gap
and it bleeds. In the end it's a scarf in the wind, love,
beads of water scattered into sunlight.

Copyright © 2002 Ken Smith All rights reserved
from Shed
Bloodaxe Books / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission