Difference, Difference

Gravel path stirred by the rain fallen hard through the sweetgum trees, path that leads to the bend where the trail splits open in air: Everything is lighted evenly. It is a queer hour. The difference between light and shadow is the jealousy turn in the eye. The sun is all in the bottle cap that glints in the silt like a djinn’s brass hilt, in the way some lea  is frozen unto the air, some warm leaf heavywet here, and in how, just there: The strangeness strangely passes. And evening mounts. I can’t get the life out of my head. There is no glamour on this path but if I return I will find it in the thought of how I looked for some. I stoop to look at the veins that sweep like Latin roots in the satin of things, dream: The difference between something and nothing, which is nothing. The gravel lies on itself like dust lies on water. No, no, there are no mothers here. I bend to see it all, the little stones cast-wise. Things chase themselves away from the mode of things. I find a quartz, milked clear: I could not hear its accent if it sang, no matter how far off it formed. What dead hand I should feel if I lifted it.