What You Don’t Always See

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.” ~ Hebrews 11:1

I am the sheen of the egg after it has dropped its sun
into the heated pan. I am the cool underlining the day.
I am the dry, cracked bodhi leaf that fell from the tree

under which the sage closed his eyes and made a perfect
circle with his finger and thumb, and now lies in a frame
bought at the temple gift shop. I am the trill of a cricket

craning its body toward autumn in ninety degree heat.
I am the hunger that swerved like a bus on a switch-
back trail, so the hens and the goats being taken

to market broke out of their makeshift cages,
scrambling into the bushes to safety. I am
the tremble in the arc of the pendulum weight

as it hums from the tension in its silver wire.
I am the dream that flickers beneath the eyelids
of the child who wakes then names the events

that unfold. I am the filament that lodges
in the throat, tasting of salt and bone. And I,
I am the clock that stops just short of despair,

the zipper’s train whistling to the end of the track
and back; the shirt that fastens all the way to the top
so fingers can loosen the tiny buttons a little, or a lot.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.