The Shine of the Ordinary

   by Phillip Peters

A maple leaf, golden red, rests on the ground,
flat becomes satin in the rain.

A shard of glass gleams, swallows the last
glimpse of sunlight, gloss becomes quiet.

Stars shine like the dead
on the canopy of a lively black night

A young man falls in love
breaks two lives into one.

A young woman breaks a heart,
shattered its shards reflect starlight

into the eyes of a child crying in the moonlight
at the loss of nothing but love.

An old man rocks on a darkened porch,
listens to the chair sing his name,

call his tired bones in their own language,
the one we all hear, but never understand.

Beneath stars, moon and the infinite sky
the ordinary shine. Fireflies climb up into nothing

but night as we try to swallow that last ray of 
love shining in the gloss of an eye.