Shadows

A poem

August 31, 2007
Smoke Blowing
10:42 a.m.
The sun at an angle
Casts upon the walls
At the garden's rear
A dense gray shadow of chimney
And ever-moving patterns of smoke
Twisting past windows three buildings along
Tangling itself in the bare wisteria
Warming not at all the birds sheltering in the vines.
Of Fire Escapes Scribbled Over
3:23 p.m.
The sun, in its rebirth flirtatious
Has moved along teasing and tickling
Bare trees, casting their trembling shadows
Over cheap glazed brick
Distorting the rigid grid of fire escapes
With a scribble of limbs and twigs
Drawn over, all tone of shade the same
Solar draftsman doodling on the city's pad.