Shadow and Light

Incised in concrete
knife-edged shadow
frond a perfect
arrest of clarity

a palm frond arrow
from a declining sun

shadow and light
lust of epiphany
the illusion that walks
with me on concrete

invisible come-along
shadow and light

epiphany of the shadow
tangible as light palm shape
holds me timeless until
without thinking I pass by

an arrest of clarity held
and released by a declining
sun : step over the shadow
light vanishes a passerby

Credit

From Writing the Silences (University of California Press, 2010) by Richard O. Moore. Copyright © 2010 by the Regents of the University of California. Used with permission of University of California Press Books.

Author

Richard O. Moore

Richard O. Moore was born in 1920 in Ohio. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he took poetry classes with Josephine Miles. In the late 1930s, Moore attended Kenneth Rexroth’s literary salons, referred to as “the Fridays,” at Rexroth’s home on Potrero Hill.

Date Published

01/01/2010