A Silver Flash
by Janice D. Soderling
A silver flash of fishes in the bay
confirms the close of this September day.
The gray and pink of ancient granite rock
marks my recurrent path past stick and stock
and scanty clumps of heather, pink and gray.
In chattering, smattering haste to be away,
forsaking their frail daubs of spit and clay,
the swallows soar in one cohesive flock:
a silver flash.
No matter that I cry and beg to stay;
a daub of spit and clay on bone is prey
to despot time. Here where I quickly walk,
the upswell took millennia to clock.
One more will weather stone to sand, and mock
my decades disappearing as one day:
a silver flash.
