All day the bright heavy sun and now

The last lingering of dusk, the stones

So perfectly balanced during the day

Begin to lean a little into darkness,

And a faint shimmering above them,

Giving back the warmth and the light,

As some few have seen souls depart;

I do not doubt them, believing no less

In the passages of stones and light

Into the brief but necessary dark.

Something of that dry-mason's art

Endures in me, to love a place and

Leave behind a fitting monument.

But no poem can keep the sounds of

Something soft and swift in the trees,

And then from the trees, a rustling

Across black leaves in deep shadow

To the wall, and in a held heartbeat -

Whether mine or the stunned stones'

I cannot say - leaps up and is gone.