Roof-Walker

He leans on the sky up there, as if he's painting
not so much the rust-streaked silver roof
as the shed, the field, the sun — the whole July —
with strokes of barn-red, hay-green, sky-blue air.
Maybe the scene's so blazing-summer dry
you wonder about the reason for the rust;
but think of the Januaries that he's there
sweeping a white mass over the eaves below.
And wonder, then, if you could get accustomed
(up there between the silver or the snow
and heaven) to the roof and to the sky,
to brushing the weather away — and if you'd grow
too seasoned in the barn-roof point of view
to come back down to the flat brown earth you knew.

Copyright © 2004 Deborah Warren All rights reserved
from The Formalist
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission