Palladium
A cortege of clouds’
shifting planes
reflected on a river,
the current’s weave deepens,
yet motionless
the dramatization of
a fern unfolding,
light illuminating the air
for a moment’s threshold,
when time, where we stand,
corresponds to the day
held firm,
derived from the elegance of
the equation
for what was once never here.
Copyright © 2016 by James Brasfield. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 10, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I’m thinking about moments of safety, wherever we find ourselves, about place before there was place or time among the elements of our solar system, and of all that recedes.”
—James Brasfield
James Brasfield
James Brasfield is the author of Infinite Altars (Louisiana State University Press, 2016). He teaches at Penn State University and lives in State College, Pennsylvania.