CHIMES

Mid-August. Evening. Rain falling.

Cold, bright silk where the street fronts a house.

Out back, it laves and slicks the parched leaves of the trees.

Ragged hang of summer’s end.

I lean against the doorway of the poem,

listening to the old patter.

My cat, Zeke, lays himself out imperially.

Eleven pounds of grey smoke

with tufted ears and a curved plume of a tail.

Now, a slight wind,

and The Emperor of Heaven’s chimes intone like distant bells,

his court musician’s 4000-year-old pentatonic scale

pealing in slow, clear ripples.

Occasionally, a chord.

Every day I live I live forever.