Sharp Lines

by Robert Sund

Sharp lines

soften in the reflected light

as the sun falls lower and lower.

Shadows

slowly lift the fields.

Coming from somewhere unseen,

a barn swallow shoots up into the bright sky,

dips down into

the shadows, sweeps

back up,

brilliant and sunlit,

designing

in an old, unformulated language

the single word for

joy.

From Poems from Ish River Country, Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004, page 59, originally from Bunch Grass, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969.       +