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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

The After-Light

by Ed Hack

The after-light, late afternoon, a spill
of silvered glow as clear as ice that holds
the world before light leaves. The tree is still
as breath when something mortal has been told,
or beauty has just caught you by surprise--
a red, thin Cheshire Moon in early spring,
or Dogwood ghostly as the evening sighs
before the world goes black and stars can sing
their silver song of Time more quietly
than snow. You blink. You can't believe
your eyes. This is a kind of piety,
this haunted glow that cannot last, reprieve
from change's avalanche that pours and roars
each second's tick on life's storm-pounded shores.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The sonnet is lovely for the way it makes the reader want to take pause, the same way the narrator has before the changing times of day and light and seasons and life. I very much like the line that beauty is "a kind of piety." This sonnet, as many others by this poet, is a meditation; it makes me slow down my reading and appreciate the stillness within the lines.

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