for Mark Burrows
This early October afternoon
has been gilded by golden light
whose beams have been touched
with a dappled reverence;
which has consumed me with
such pointed concentration, I am
reminded of its significance only
by its diminishment, its waning,
its lengthening shadows
through which the echoing of
voices has awakened me to
an awareness of what is stellar—
in admiring its motes floating
within these late afternoon bands,
making what is green more
green, what glints more gold,
then silver; whose flecks drift up
and scatter, orbiting as do stars,
galaxies in a cosmos, dusted
from a master gilder’s hands.
