The canebrake sports new shoots, whose green tips spear
the cloudless brightness of the azure sky.
Behind closed gates, the orchard’s parched and dry.
Its twigs jut upward in the sultry air.
An empty hour ascends the blue. I wait
and watch the sea that shifts its shade to grey.
Clouds on the water build up like a tree;
like ash they crumble and disintegrate.
Dear absent one, I miss you on this shore!
It conjures you. It wastes when you’re not here.
You’ve gone. Things jolted from their proper sphere
collapse, lost in the haze, and are no more.
