Beneath the Glass

An arching bridge that spans a crystal stream
Attracts attention. People tend to pause,
To gaze beneath the surface and to dream
Their silent dreams: a knight without a cause;
A painter who has put away her brush;
An old philosopher. The waters rush
Unceasingly across the sun-flecked bed
Of sunken leaves, now motionless and dead.

The current races by and we stand still,
Uncertain whether pausing here to breathe
Will make our time expand, or if it will
Permit us nothing more than to bequeath
Unto the fallen leaves beneath the glass
A moment shared in watching water pass,
Communing with them, grave and lying flat,
And knowing, someday, we will lie like that.

—Daniel Jabe