a day

(for you, Emily)

When an image is arrived upon; undressed and caught speechless inside a jar;
when reflected light bounces mad as a fly against a pane of glass, unaware if what it craves
remains just outside of reach
because the ear is closed or the tongue too thick;
when a baby cries or a drunk turns anxious in his sleep;

when a bright day in the country stands menacing in its silence, its deep perspective, its dead silence;
the cows and goats on the grass mere holes in cow shapes and goat shapes
under a shade tree spangled in sunlight, too dazzling to touch.

Is the space out here, from where the music froze;
and where Lots wife, nameless but for this
dissolves into her pale white shell;
illiterate instructions from the lake of dreams and contradiction.

where a young girl cries for help to put her shoes on the proper feet.
Not a sound from there but the light of her small beautiful feet.

Let the confidence of a time before we spoke of Time carry her softly across the field, across the white grass,
to where your eye plays with tricks,
and see in perfect silence that unity, destroyed
in the hushed
ruthless unfolding of the clover.

© Jeff Thomas 2009