Carving Out Darkness

Sharp morning shadows
Etch deeply on the tree
Carving out darkness.












Fresh pile of cut wood
Lies bleaching in the sunshine
Storing up its heat.

Miniature daisies:
Asters cluster together;
Unthinking bouquet.

In the bright silence
Shadows lie as still as ghosts.
A single dove coos.












A lone patch of sun
Falls on a rock in the woods.
Its moment of light.

Into the silence--
Punctuating explosions,
The local gun club.

Maroon thrust upward,
Sumac stalks point to the sky;
Tightly clustered fruit.









Brown leaf in green grass
Caught in web of the living.
Others will soon join it.