Violet

No one else sits in the yard

Where afternoon idles,

The sky unwinding slowly,

A ribbon beyond reach,

The grass murmuring with shadow.

 

The violet sun is turned away.

Glowing flecks of dust glaze the windows.

The carpenters down the block

Shout and count their tools.

They’ve cut enough lengths today,

Saws singing like cicadas.

 

In the dimming light, colors consumed by the hours

Fall like flakes of ash from the single elm’s branches.

Everything is scooped up, packed away,

The measuring complete.

 

Fugitive memories hover like lazy flies,

Melting into the dwindling violet stream.

All that is here, now,

Is unexceptional

And complete.

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