Red Clay Weather

And This She Knows

—58 And This She Knows —For Catherine Imbriglio When she is the sky she reigns in shades of sky-white and cloud -blue, an afternoon shower interrupts a month of drought and burn bans: then she is the field where meaning is set to music, fluttering its gray and black wings: noonlight glimpsed between three trees, that weightlessly green  Beneath the sudden Orpheus clouds thunder cracks the sound in half of which she takes full note to note until it is a song again Ruined water will not impede her progress through the music burning in lightning effigy which is her flight from sky to sky  Her wings still shy from sudden rains curtaining her off from beauty, green branch on which she perches when she is a bird in hiding in brush or bush or live oak foliage She takes away the definition of December, myths are enacted by the book, leaf by leaf: whole sky, whole days go by in single flight from branch to overhanging branch shepherd text-2.indd 58 11/22/10 2:07 PM —59  She shakes damp light from tousled feathers and glides into forested song shepherd text-2.indd 59 11/22/10 2:07 PM ...