For Edward Steichen
A delphinium flings a shadow
with a rooted stalk -
a personal shadow.
Each silhouette documents
designs and dooms woven
between shape and shadowshape.
You may add two delphiniums
with seeds lighted in soil
with stalks prepared in loam
toward the upheave into bloom
when stalk and leaves find a path
hold a rocketform of blue
hold it in a velvet stillstand.
In a summer daybreak rain
a huddle of delphiniums
across spikes of fogblue leaves
out of little mistblue cups
trade meditations on being
shapes and shadowshapes.
Cups and bells nod in the sun,
in the fine dust of the wind:
one newborn delphinium laughing
at the long scroll of marriages
whereby she is the latest child
bringing to the bright air her shape,
to the dark earth her shadow.
Shaded out of seven prisms
in choices by living fingers
out of the rainbow end?
Yes and the winds
of many evenings came:
dawns drew in with dew and mist
and the bells of many rains rang.
Soft and lovely
these transients go yet stay
Even their violence goes in velvet.