It speaks on water, on snow.
On the black hair of my sister.
On the hide of my horse.
Of course the light doesn’t
admonish. It is the jay that scolds.
The light does nothing
but coax. I should not
personify it so.
It is a stream of photons, massless
packets of energy,
each traveling like a wave.
But this afternoon, turning the leaves
silver it said something.
Said silver.
Down through the leaves.
Said river.
Said something beyond that
I didn’t understand
as I was riding the back of it
and it wasn’t speaking to me.
Patricia Davis’s poems and translations have appeared in Smartish Pace, Third Coast, Crab Creek Review, Kestrel, and other journals. Her chapbook, The Water that Broke You, was published by Finishing Line Press. She earned her MFA at American University.
