to be gained from
observing the way
light's recalcitrance
accumulates
on a late November day—
when heavy gold rays
strike the trees'
meager branches
and seem,
for the first time
all year, to outspan them.
And though, as they
must do, they pass
right through,
for a moment,
they seem to want
to stiffen and hang,
like jewels
on a pendant, for a week
of afternoons—it's as if
the light knew
any better than you
or I do
how to own more
than a moment
in this world,
how to thwart time,
how to own it,
how to stay.
