Acts Of Diffusion

I.

Half-light scatters through sundowned trees,
their leaves turned against the cusp of night.

It silvers itself across a deadfall floor,
casts long reflections from the rough surface

that reach up, sweep back in particled waves
to dust the saw palmettos like crushed glass.

II.

Warblers throw their voices along nodding banks,
the sound spans the gaps between day and dusk.

Fog and branch catch notes full-throated in webs
of mist, scarves of bark until their range is sieved;

becomes shadow song that sifts down on winter’s chill,
a fallen silence translucent as frost on a breath.

III.

Across the scope of night, little deaths count time
on the faces of fawn, fox, red-tipped squirrel.

The dark primeval eats its heart, follows its cycle
through copse and covert by motion, by memory;

seasons imbrue lineage in dispassionate blood,
seed their continuance on a vanishing pulse.