The bluebird flew between me 
and the filmy noonday moon—
such swift translucences,
stillness/movement/moment
brimming with transience 
impossible to bear—Again,
I ask, Pass through me again.
Like a cello note too long sustained,
or a memory locked in a photograph.
Searching for it in the distance…
Is there a bird-shaped shadow,
a bird at rest on that branch?…No. 
But there was. And there will be.
It’s the time between will be
and was that’s so hard to bear:
the absence on the branch. 
And when the grasses on the hillsides
have gone to golden, the misty green 
halo of seedheads polished dry 
by the hand of the wind, will I still
be asking the day moon to remain,
or will I at last understand
it’s not the presence of change 
I most dread but its absence?