Irregular
as clockwork, she
decamps to track
her square of sun
as it’s displaced,
altered, transformed
in the black oak’s
trestled shadow.

She does not read
ahead, or try
surmising how
the lines will change;
the seasons move
her less, perhaps,
than the spent hour,
the change in time,

the unpredictable
point from which
the sun decides
its daily loft
into the air
until it is caught
in the black oak,
and dangles there.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 39 Number 9, on page 31
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