WHEN IT WAS FIVE O’CLOCK
A cloud surveyor is what I became
as the tree line accumulates
darkness and merges.
The land north of here
is geometrically flat,
awaiting the tracking birds
but still seeing itself lovely.
Perhaps it is best not to end
a poem with a memory
or the gradual shift of light –
a space full of erasures.
But if you sit long enough,
something calculates these things
like an equilibrium of breaths.
And that may be the secret –
to wait at the crossroads
where we can watch for hours
seeing each other walk and
approach in the five o’clock light,
where love becomes only a single body,
a language largely untranslated
that keeps its distance, and
promises delight it cannot keep.
*
Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator who lives in a rural village amidst the rolling farmland of Ohio. His poems have appeared in: Last Stanza, Quaci, Grey Sparrow, Lighten-Up Online, Ekphrastic Review, The Montreal Review and a number of other journals and anthologies. He has been twice-nominated for a Pushcart prize.