The moment when the sky turned to one solid
Plate of grey beginning its dull spread
From no definable point at all;
When every thrasher and bank swallow
And kite who called
Called from far away, out of earshot
Behind the flat predictable hills of common grey;
When every insect that rose
Rose motionless above the lake and became an invisible
Silent-grey against the plate-grey sky;
When the rough-bark backs of the toads sank
With no effort, out of sight
Into the rough-bark beds of mud slowly smoothing
themselves
To an indifferent sky-pale sheen
And the lines of the spider lilies bent backward
Into themselves blending perfectly with the boundaries
Of the floating hearts moving in and out
Of their own vacillating facts;
And the name of the blue teal’s cry merged
Without detection into the name
Of the dissipating odor of the butterfly pea;
When the breezes stood stockstill
Over the empty, unnoticeably quiet
Waters of grey,
That was the same moment
When the pen rolled into the infinity
Just beyond the fingertips,
When the poet lay back among the disappearing grasses,
Closed her eyes beneath the vanishing heavens
And slept.
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