Slow Light

In the half-light of dawn,
the tracery
of trees against the sky;
cold treachery
in black;
all the world seems flat
as though reflected in a glass,
back-lit, where laughing faces turn
to one another and then move on.

Along the silent street the ancient light
of stars reflects upon
-- at last -- the solid flat of place
after the nothingness of space
that slow light twinkled through.

A foot can step upon a star
resting on an ice-slick street
and then move on.  The oily light
collects its rainbowed self before
the footstep's echo fades.

As though reflected in a glass
tree-shadows stir against the flat
half-light; and in the softening east
the morning moves; there rises west
reflected on the clouds, the purple glim.
It's time the stars were turning in.

And there behind the empty glass
your face revolves; the last light dims;
I see the darker side of space:
a window empty of your face.

Sharon Kourous