An interruption
And the night shifts. Something
Clatters the bamboo.

No one clatters
Along this bamboo but I,
This lonely night.

Night clatters along.
Something lonely shifts
The bamboo reeds.

Lonely reeds shift and
Something in the night clatters
An interruption.

*

From damp earth
A bright gray smell
Of leaves, of earth again.

No smell of damp.
Leaves soon turn bright and
Fall to earth and mud.

How soon it must turn.
Damp leaves fall bright, then
Mud and earth again.

The leaves, gray. The smell,
gray and earthen. Damp,
mud, the turning earth.

*

In the frost, listen.
To the water, listen.
The moon cries: listen.

Listen to the frost
Crying at the moon, the water
crying too. Listen.

BIO

Ash Ellison is an artist and educator in Tennessee.