Sun on the Walls, Shade in the Door

Plain facts of a day’s light
In a dry land, no clouds
To smear the brush like art

With a grim, deft, old hand,
With a wheel of grey-blue
Hues to choose. Just the sun,

Stripped of most of its reds,
Wroth with what pale blue’s left.
Sun on walls. Shade in door,

Where the split pine, half dead
From the winds that tear it
Limb from limb, still throws dark.

That’s it. O, so much else
Goes on, just past this house,
Near and far. Some days smoke,

Some days knocks at strange hours,
A rare loss of power, wolves
In the forms of folks, howls

In the night from the road,
From the wild, from the world.
But in these hours? Shade. Sun.

You know they’ll come for us.
You know how things get done.
But in these hours? Shade. Sun.