Before Paradise all was ice,

a glazed glissandi, a white abide.

Glass slides between bidden hues

and a scrawny willow barely swayed by gusts.

Spilling even into her pillow

flowered folds, ribboning peals:

“Coming round, sir, the mountain,”

the marsh where reed-deep water

paints a blue heron black.

Mistaking its reflection

for a shadow, it stumbles

over a squawk of its own air.

— Dancing Shadow, 1993