Robert Verdon, #90, moment of being

late, late in the afternoon

the tall minute hand

like a thin flint pinnacle

spreads its sizzling shadow

over the garden

and there are stars

unseen in the sky

shining in the pond

among the goldfish

and far away, children

fence with sparklers

[title is Virginia Woolf's phrase: see Woolf, Virginia. Moments of Being: Unpublished Autobiographical Writings. Edited With an Introduction and Notes by Jeanne Schulkind. Frogmore, St Albans, Herts: Triad Panther, 1978.]