There Are Days

There are days when I'm just shuffling through a sketchbook,
and each shape I painted on page twenty,
or if I look out the window each shape in the sky,
is speaking of that meadow stream,
its waters running level with the grasses.
Scribbles of the opera singer's rib cage;
an old-timey word like ''roil'' or ''waft;"
my mother's brass samovar full of magnolia leaves;
and here's a question, "Have there ever been gentle harbor lights?"
The brush explores so much and so little.
That hush just before you enter a room,
when you pull a deep breath and go in on a charge of silence.

Watercolor 6 x 8'' and poem