Tawny Light
If I could be carried back to this, the just-before-dark
peach explosion of light touching the trees, and then
the tips and serrated leaves on the wasteland chicory,
if I could be lifted back to this before I die,
the way Queen Anne’s lace blooms, then closes
into a tight clump, each blossom a nest not
large enough for a warbler or a wren, though a bee
could crawl in, sleeping for a few hours
in a swaying stalk-top bed, canopied,
dreaming of pollen, nectar sticky on pistils, all things sweet.
If I could feel in my hand the electric charge
when a hornet awakens in a petal, one
I’ve dead-headed and held still—a red, tissue-thin shred
of hibiscus—in my palm. If I could believe beyond age,
strife, death, beyond sorrow and despair, believe thus
in light’s ample touch, its democratic, generosity-poured,
free and extrapolated love sent here
by stars long since winking out, departed
like our parents, then I could appreciate before going, nod,
and driving home tonight from the river—not mind
at all full darkness, and to come—no moon, no rest.
PATRICIA CLARK is the author of six volumes of poetry, including Sunday Rising, The Canopy, and most recently Self Portrait with a Million Dollars. Read more.
“Tawny Light” appears in She Walks into the Sea (Michigan State UP, 2009).