(in memoriam D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930)
No sketch is quick enough,
the hand fails its tyrant eye.
The rushing clouds like a magician’s hands
playing tricks on the landscape,
pushing mid-morning close to dusk
then reeling it back again,
baylight restored to its white,
a ceramic slope the birds dive along,
snowsledding the curve of air down
towards the aquamarine that will feed them
and send them calling noisily into another part of day.
A glass of water on a moon of yellowy lace.
A simple table, without frills or shiver,
a vase of orchids, quiet in their Scythian coats.
The birds and bugs and flowers flit
and crawl and hide from their many names.
Nahuatl or Latin, spry or guttural.
The light calls to them, its changing tense,
its absence, its approach.
Furred creatures, scaled creatures,
creatures feathered, shelled, and foliated
know the names by which the light calls them,
and hasten to its bidding.
Turning to it, with their shadows laid out behind them,
as much like lovers as like slaves.