LIGHT EFFECTS

My brain is trained on light effects:
Not the giant lily's universal curve
But the minimal divisions of umbellifers,
And cropped fields viewed from hills
Where seagulls glint
Like chips of flint
In distant stubble.

It's local sound that startles me:
A coffee mug tapped on a wooden table,
The repetitive floorboard's interruptive creak,
A gate carving the air with the sharpness of its unoiled hinges:
All these obscure the frantic sound
Of mortals clinging with unhopeful laughter
To the fringes of eternity.

I am trapped behind doors and their locks,
Not free even within my hutch of time,
Addicted to fractional news of the over-all scheme,
Straining acutely to gain what I can
From creaking floors and the far view of fields
Where seagulls glint
Like chips of flint
In distant stubble.