again

First Light

This same thin wash of winter light

basted hard wood fen that stood silent once

where I sit watching mornings hem

gather high on the jutting hip of noon.  It

gently scrubbed the stubble field that scored

the old Watch farm, cleared the crumbling

lip of fresh dug cellar, made clapboard blush,

set alight the highest branches of the plane

tree as it gained the roof line by degree, swept

this room with a watery beam that found lingerers

tweezing out gauzy strands of dreams, and

the empty chairs of hunters and the hunted,

caressing, on occasion, those who relished

a second cup while waiting for words to swim

into view, scribe an arc to nightfall.