Suncatcher
by Sarah Gridley
Why all this time, the sun is a stable star,
a gift, a given. Why the glassmaker
embossed the disc
with a bird figure blowing
a long-necked horn. Why the disc,
pendant on a purple ribbon,
is a core sample of passing time,
a telescope folded in,
a lone eye looking from the kitchen
to where the cool aquatic tone draws off
to shade the depths of burial grounds,
the shearing shelves of ice,
blues more distantly immediate
for having fallen nearly out of form.
Why a circle is androgynous. Why time runs
hot and cold. When to fill the bath.
Why trees fill in. There’s chronos to pin
the sun to sequence, and kairos to catch
the sun off guard. As at times
a liquid glint will coat the disc
in a habit of spinning
slowly sideways, as if a match
could burn underwater, quickly blue,
or barely dreamed, blue outdoing blue
for the always collective life of fire,
the disc’s phenomenal turn,
fire whose hottest silver is marine,
whose schooling shimmer
is of where things go,
the loose but unanimous pivot
of the bound,
if sudden-minded shoal.
Published on May 1, 2019