Window Well

I know you best by the silhouettes
Of the bushes on the white tin wall
And the frogs and birds that dumbly sit
And teeter in the squall;

Staring up, without relief,
Without the concept of liberty
To trouble them beyond the grief
Of simple animal necessity.

The boughs which o'erhang the side
Catch at morn a glorious light,
Shiver as the dew drops slide,
Blazing emerald before the night.

Festooned with strands of gossamer,
Like fragments of a soul,
That for a moment flicker
Then lie invisible.