Or, less quaint, raindrops hanging on leaf tips

 of bamboo.

With magnifying glass, each bead is huge,

prismatic,

a perfect globe of an overturned world

bright with trees,

houses, my neighbor’s parked car, parted clouds,

all reversed,

all temporal now that the sun warms them

this morning.

Give these light-filled planets one more hour

to glimmer,

if in no other way than in the words I’ve picked

to preserve

their glassy beauty on this winter night.

We’re beyond

that spent hour in a far April. Forecast:

 trace of snow.

Now: sharp clear sky, an ornate quilt of stars.

Those drifting 

ice grains have ferried me back to that far

 bright April,

those bejeweled sun-struck glisters on bamboo.

I recall

I rummaged high and low, emptying all

the desk drawers

for the scratched, thrift store magnifying glass.

I wanted 

to see inside, up-close, the brilliance of

light drying,

to observe, first-hand, time in the process

of dying.

Ed Harkness is our Poet in Residence for August.

Previously: Unable to Waken, Tying a Tie, and Kite, Kalaloch Beach