Shadows.

If the great downy underwings carry hidden shadows,

we below, through our distracted, rushed sympathies,

understand that when we are lost there can

be the strange flutter, where we find around us,

pooled and concentric, a sudden comprehension.

Is there a difference in us after that?

Do the long, winding streets, carefully

swept in the morning, lead somewhere now?

The trees beside the curb release a fall

of gummy seeds that can't sprout,

that lie all night under the moon.

Startled, we wander off beside the water,

to where we imagine music plays, something

to lend us a geometry of breathing-together

for a while.  Abalone glints like the moon,

skull-shell that dreams of waves caught in a jar,

compressed and alchemized into knowledge.