By Pattiann Rogers
The cat has the chance to make the sunlight
Beautiful, to stop it and turn it immediately
Into black fur and motion, to take it
As shifting branch and brown feather
Into the back of the brain forever.
The cardinal has flown the sun in red
Through the oak forest to the lawn.
The finch has caught it in yellow
And taken it among the thorns. By the spider
It has been bound tightly and tied
In an eight-stringed knot.
The sun has been intercepted in its one
Basic state and changed to a million varieties
Of green stick and tassel. It has been broken
Into pieces by glass rings, by mist
Over the river. Its heat
Has been given the board fence for body,
The desert rock for fact. On winter hills
It has been laid down in white like a martyr.
This afternoon we could spread gold scarves
Clear across the field and say in truth,
“Sun you are silk.”
Imagine the sun totally isolated,
Its brightness shot in continuous streaks straight out
Into the black, never arrested,
Never once being made light.
Someone should take note
Of how the earth has saved the sun from oblivion.
Pattiann Rogers, "The Significance of Location" from Firekeeper. Copyright © 2005 by Pattiann Rogers. Reprinted by permission of Milkweed Editions.
Source: Firekeeper (Milkweed Editions, 2005)
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