Throwing Shadows

Day breaks in bright white-blue on ebony hills and trees

Which don't throw shadows yet, but cling to them like dark wet coats

And the dew is soft and cold, giving all the deep hue of early morning

And the sun grabs the clouds and they burn a subtle crimson

And the grass is frosted green except where glassy footprints have tread

A lonely passage amongst somber brooding trunks

The water is languid and flat and silver in spots

And the trees, burning bright with fall,

Black trunks and limbs held aloft

On its mirrored surface, shimmering

Shimmering ink reflections

Leaves quiver and wave,

Yellow, red and golden flames

On a mirrored surface

And a single black bird bathes in quicksilver

Where the water pushes at the shore

Drinking the land

And the breeze swirls and dances

On a mirrored surface, rippling

Rippling

Under a white-blue sky

The water is languid and flat and silver in spots

A gold-ivory moon clings to the dark horizon

And the sun paints with moonlight

Ebony trees pose under a veil of frozen dew

Stark silhouettes against the bulbous surface

And reaching up into the night sky

Of scattered diamonds and burnished velvet

The water drags the moon across its surface

Pulling it down like a silvery blanket

And through the trees the moon is cracked china

Lined with a thousand tiny gnarled branches

And the moonlight stretches the length of the hill

Intertwined, tangled with thrown shadows

And a star not held aloft streaks the night sky

A sudden fuse of light burning dark