Charles Hadfield
The Stolen Compass
Lacework of sunlight, firelines
crackling between plant stems
so fine they cannot bethis beauty, the botany,
fleabane seedheads,
midwinter low light
and spiders linking each
blade of grass with dewonly inches away the chattering streams
are out of focus
and there
palm swifts flicker and swoop, wheel, dive, turn, cut their
curves across the thick heat
a world map in the lobby shows lines of night and day
creeping, their angles shifting from week to week
and sometimes out of the blue a plot.
A riddle. A round of cards.
How the master always puts you in check.
Reverses his ploy. A waiting game:
by the pool the fading chairs and recliners?
in the snow the rusting pylons?
at the edge of the field a rotting gate?
Keep all this in mind.
Measure it in the palm of your hand.
Page(s) 112
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