Half-Light and Whispers

Twilight is the most beautiful season of the day
Where heavy light clots like milk across the seams
Of stones warmed by the touch of sun
Shapes and shadows fray and spill and run
Spreading orange moons across the pavement
And ashed, reverent dust betrays itself
To cautious breath from incensed city rises.

The battlements fast amid the languor of the evening
Tangerine accents to everything and everyone
Things are said and unsaid
Spoken, and left in gentle pauses
And words unthought and unannounced creep forth
Noise and interlude co-exist
As silence and the hubbub kiss
As lovers do upon a sandy stair of time
Revealing life, unraveling rhyme.

An orange man breaks cover—the fox of urban hedge
His happy silent steps
A dance of star-glow and moon-merry
Of joy untouched
Of small, broken dawn
Be merry yet, dear fox
Beyond all sense and recall
Afore all care, a voice
A voice
Noli me tangere.