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Within You and Without You


by Gary Hardaway


After Rain

The pavements glisten still
with just-ended steady rain.
Rivulets flow along
gutters and into drains.

The grass burns a brighter
green and rises, turgid.
For a moment, the drought ends,
here in early June, before
the real fire sets in.


Moonlight, late October

The not quite half moon
smiles its not quite smile
above the roof tops.
The cloudless sky
amplifies the incompletion,
clarifies the imperfections
of the night's normalcy-
the not quite we all expect
but never hope for.
The sky disappoints again
our cosmic dreams
of something precise and perfect.


Urban Pastoral

The cottontail investigates its fur
and takes in the early morning air
in a glow of artificial light.

Twenty feet away,
I make no sudden moves
and savor the dark before dawn.
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