Owls glide
back into the trees.
There goes the milkman
with his jingling bottles,
dust pursuing him
down the bumpy road.
Blackbirds in a willow,
robins in the grass. All of it
may be thousands of years ago
or infinite as a moment
painted on a wall, and the wall
itself forgotten.
Ten thousand years, half a million
ghost lights on a hillside
in a water ball of glass,
in the arch of a thumbnail, brow
of a beautiful face
glimpsed in passing.
from Poetry Northwest 11.2 Winter & Spring 2017More by Christopher Howell from the library
Copyright © Christopher Howell
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.