The recorded voice of the dead Church bell
Vibrates the manmade stone beneath,
As he steps wetly under the cloud-kholed eye.
The walker joys in sunny rain—
Brought by the roof-cresting eye,
Hazed in cloud, chasing the nightclung ice.
The wire-dropped ice spatters,
The branch-running ice trickling all around,
The leaf-dripping, numberless patter of drops gathering on the concrete block.
Skeletal maples unleash the tingling trickles,
Dormant oaks release the pattering drops—
Evergreens shimmer and shine in the hazy sun.
Light poles run with nightclung slush,
A rubber-leafed tree drops and catches watery beads with deep-veined leaves,
And the bamboo stand sings like living rain as the gutter silently runs.
Railings run with just-made water
Under the cloud-shadowed eye,
The song of the dead churchbell gone.
As the apish body stalls,
A screaming fire engine rumbling by,
He squats above the streaming gutter.
With the bamboo singing,
Trees dripping and trickling,
Evergreens defiantly glistening,
He wonders:
If this is winter, are we the ice or the tree, and what of the Sun?
