Elucidation

Measure it in qualia, not waves;
not a neutrino’s phase, rather the dip in cast
when clouds or other bodies –
heavenly or earthly – obscure the source. Shade,
a subtle flickering between the leaves
of trees in open season, dapples the cool earth.

Find the apex of the earth –
fluorescent bands ignite in vibrant waves;
the midnight sun leaves
a sheen on fjords, luster on water. Cast
your eyes down the globe, the shade
of palms veils a golden body

of sand. White protects the body
from desert heat; dunes limn the earth.
Cover yourself with light, search for caves – their shade
will shield you like a tortoise shell. It comes in waves,
this desire to qualify, investigate, cast
light on Light. Scan her book of magic leaves.

Dream, as hands roll copper compounds into paper leaves,
sodium, barium mixed in the body;
wait for sugared supernovae to cast
their spell; dive off the hard earth,
swim where shadows fall like hulls on waves,
shaking limpid worlds of shale and shade.

Forget photons; appreciate how blue can shade
to blue-black, black, how a great master leaves
a swathe of it on canvas. Attendants wave
aside a gallery crowd when as a body
in it weighs to see the highlight of an eye. Earth
bathes in light (yet shadows still are cast).

There is a way to understand: simply cast
your mind back to when you lay in summer shade
and every blade was back-lit. Believe the earth.
Before the bracken, the fern’s unfolding leaves.
Before the dawn, the dusk; before the body,
the matrix of particles and waves.

The cast bows and leaves
their stage, the grass-tipped earth. One body,
they pass into the shade; the house empties in murmured waves.