That Slant of Light
The garden holds its breath
in that particular hour —
not night, not morning yet,
but something bruised between.
The moon has not let go.
He never lets go easily,
that old negotiator of tides,
hanging pale and stubborn
in a sky already blushing
at what is coming.
And then the light arrives —
not all at once,
never all at once —
a slant of it, golden-thin,
sliding across the sleeping beds
like a hand laid gently
on a shoulder.
It finds the dew first.
It always finds the dew first.
Each drop a small world
suddenly lit from within,
as if they too had been waiting
for permission to be beautiful.
The hydrangeas stand still.
The dark earth gives off its breath.
Something that was shadow
becomes outline, becomes leaf, becomes
itself again —
the slow ceremony
of things returning to their names.
I have stood here before
in other Marches, other mournings,
watching this same negotiation
between the dark and the possible.
The moon argues. The light insists.
And the garden, wise and patient,
simply opens.
I am learning to do the same.