Sonnet for Mark

By Emma Trelles

Now wakes a path between the oaks, now
falls a spell of dove and frog, and stones
dream of their mountain clans and each stick
breaks to hear its name. Now light edges creek
and water appears as a quick coin trick or
silk pulled from a funnel of months, now
behind us, at last, and shade and sky fill
the mirror moving from next to next. Now
do you see there is no stillness to this world?
Even in sleep a seed is knitting its breach
from the dark and the body hums
on the march to becoming less and right
now, words depart then arrive, like a brush
returning to a well of color.

Emma Trelles is the author of Tropicalia, winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She is currently writing a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock, and has received writing fellowships from CantoMundo and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. She teaches at Santa Barbara City College and curates the Mission Poetry Series. Also by this poet: "The Nearest Way" and "Novena for Garden Street