by Ryan Harper

Peerless japonica, hater of lime,
its bells were still this morning.
A soil compact under dew,
a limb down, short attention—
so empty there was only the breath
to count, the taskless breath.

But noon comes everything:
each leaf and manner of gliding
seed, inciting more worlds in rushes
of the reddening mode—hidden
guests whispering at the edges
of a patio, summed to small thunder,

running the basic grounds—
sparrows in allegro in the branches,
in soft swarm, the host endued.

Ryan Harper is an Assistant Professor of the Practice at Fairfield University-Bellarmine in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is the author of My Beloved Had a Vineyard, winner of the 2017 Prize Americana in poetry (Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2018). Some of his recent poems and essays have appeared in The Talon Review, Vilas Avenue, Vita Poetica, Presence, Portland Review, and elsewhere. Ryan is the creative arts editor of American Religion Journal.