"Last call," says the sun in its rusting voice,
then leans to the west, sweetening its tune
by forgetting the melody.

The taste of light lingers in the cold.
One crow waits for the shadows
the moon will throw over the brome field
two clicks of time forward.

The stand of cedars wakes with a start.
The dry ground loosens its new breaks
and tilts rocks so snakes can emerge.

The wind moves on, nothing to see here,
while the dark of the dark quiets its old hands.

What's gone seems like it's gone for good
no matter how often the song returns,
broken light reddening the opposite horizon
like a heartbreak, the song of the bloodstream,
the journey of stone through ocean to prairie,

every flicker of sound and motion always turning
into something, almost gone, almost here.