The sun painted lozenges
Intersect the concrete horizontals.
Brick glows like the clay it was made from
Like the flames that baked it
Moment by moment
I try to disassemble the angles of light
To detect its source
Below in the courtyard
A few leaves chase each other
The nondescript brown of oak.
I mistook it for a butterfly when
The wind tossed it high
Beech curls its clear ribs with a faint
Glow of gold
Though it is February
Unattractive mounds of
black and green moss
Here and there a dried ball escapes
To play with the leaves.
Ignore the scale, easy enough
In this featureless landscape
And they are giant balls of tumbleweed
Racing across a rocky desert.
Something metallic catches my eye
A pendulum three stories long
Swings from nowhere.
Is this some display of gravity
Or a soothsayer trying to tell the future.
No, only an engineer’s weight
To hold down a net across the void.
Man has tried to keep nature out
But not quite succeeded
I am glad for such small defiances.