Sunday, September 22, 2013

Todd Davis: "The Sound of Sunlight"


On the far side
of the canyon
light
is burning
through two
draws
like water
rushing
into an empty
riverbed.

A canyon wren
opens
her mouth
and a coyote
stops
midtrail
before vanishing
among juniper.

As we descend
the eastern wall
we look
down
onto
ponderosa
pine
and witness
the shadow
of a merlin
chase
the merlin
itself.

Behind us
in the meadow
where we lay
last night
the squall
of an elk
picks up
the sound
of sunlight
and joins it
in a flood
of bugling.



"The Sound of Sunlight" by Todd Davis, from In the Kingdom of the Ditch. © Michigan State University Press, 2013.  

Photography credit: "Light and shadow play with each other across the cliffs of the Grand Canyon," by Bhaskar Krishnamurthy (originally color).



1 comment :

  1. Simply beautiful. And I love the way the verticality of the poem suggests the canyon and the trees and the beams of sunlight.

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