Fade

I lie on my back
where the land draws up,
forced into bank
by a river that has its way;
I listen to water trouble and turn,
a slow diminuendo like
the fading of old scars.

Movement in the shelf of sky
is only a loss of light-
a bone moon reveals its face
along a scarf of cloud.
Heat bears the night electric;
chalks tree against slate
in skeletal bas-relief.

I watch the set of day
cast valley into flame; it leaves
a silence of sheathed wings and
the stir of italic rain.