Icicle

The tipping point between
The ice and sun
Is hot time frozen
In the melting air,

Midnight’s sunscreen,
Morning’s window,
Which light has chosen
Transparently for its show,

Age’s stand
Against the new,
Its handstand
Against the dew

Of dripping day
As it passes down
Like sunlight to the ground
In its stalactite spray:

What is seen
Is what is shed,
A world in between
Its living and its dead.

Tippet Alley
February 3rd, 2009
May 8th, 2016