Suncatcher
The way an old man sleeps on a winter morning,
light in his hair.
When the sun is bracketed by sun-dogs —
gleams of air,
faint curls of companionship, rainbows
lightly leashed.
When it no longer matters whether
trousers are brushed
clean of cat hair, or match his pilled sweater.
When the cat yawns,
and the small dog noses at her ball, then drowses.
When the day joins
tiles of sunlight with a grout of shadow.
When light’s a friend
passing from one window to the next, at this
tessellated end
of another year. The sky one giant crystal
diffracting cold.
The sun out walking its pale dogs on the white paths —
another old
and patient man, passing with a wave beyond
the window sill
where black spruce needles catch splinters of a dream
and hold them still.