On these thick days light congeals into substance,
No longer transparent medium
But cloudy liquid
Tumbling from the sky in lucent drops.
Most afternoons it may staunch and flow
Unnoticed as the tide, the trains,
The walkers through the streets.
Not now. Now it is watched for,
Caught in rivulets down a glisten of slates,
Tracked from roofs to rough-cornered walls,
Urged through windows as though it were still
Thinner than the glass;
Almost it seems a finger might be moist with it,
If the hand matched the eye's clutch.
There is such a desert in December
That we give life and room to a heart's glimmer.