Salad Days

I live the memory of an Albuquerque alley fence
lit with fragments of yellow light
how it encapsulates and delineates
the beauty of the natural world
how it lingers with me for four decades
stuck there on a summer morning

now, a newly painted brown gate set at morning’s acute angle
pulls me forward into the day, says
look
and my eyes touch and touch
sage, burnt orange, burnt umber, cream, sienna, canary,
Naples yellow, milk chocolate brown, titanium dioxide white
and
ash, charcoal, ink, or French gray shadows

I can only imagine the slow levels of molecular decay
the breaking down of what we hold to be true,
useful, or worthwhile
the push forward to recognize how much we need
to believe in the persistence of objects
yet knowing how everything dissolves and fades

but now this gentle morning tango
of color, light, and shadow
this moment infused
this beckoning of grace

[RK, 5/20/21]