It's Still Life

A Persistent Syllable

not overnight,
not immediate,
gradual,
like a shadow’s slow wrap around a flagpole,
like the tap’s persistent syllable
counting out moments.

No more today, she says,
and closes her book,
as if a page holds a boundary
against the drip,
the drift,
the soft unravel
of sight.

Would you mind, love,
chopping the onions?
I don’t think
I should.

All the words we hear.
All the sounds we see.
All the light we cannot see
gathers in
the visible lift of a finch’s wing,
in a note we almost catch
with the corner of the ear,

in a robin’s stitch of song,
a magpie’s sharp ink,
a sparrow’s hymn.

And the tap drips on,
a small, flawed bell
ringing time.