Hourglass

I sit as stolidly as a column of cold ash, longing for a bell’s clapper, or the skin of a drum that shivers under the blows of a pair of brushes. I have held this shape too long, I tell myself. The fine teeth of my thoughts are through with falling.

Across the lawn, the French lilac still glows green against the gray trees as if summer could last forever – as if a craze of twigs were some disgrace, & not the soul’s own map – & I feel a sigh coming toward me from the edge of the world.

Grain by grain, the shadows are losing their firm outlines. The sun buries itself in a white sand sky.