He stepped onto the porch and lit his pipe,
inhaled the scent of pine. The hail had sheered
the needles from the trees — the ground now lost

beneath white stones. Sunset's afterglow threw
its light up from the west, and in the east,
the petulant clouds retreated into black.

How rare, he thought, to see two sides of sky
instead of one blank scope. His pipe to lip,
he paused and listened to the hiss and crack

as the hail sublimed to mist. The vapor rose,
a slow, encroaching fog that masked the earth.
Inside, his wife was sleeping, belly burdened

with child — the undesigned result of love — while here,
the sublimation as form gave way to form. Fear swelled
inside his throat with father — that shape to come.

But overhead, between the east and west,
a distant star established his space, a mark
as ancient as his thoughts. Exhaling smoke,

he watched the fog disperse until no sign
remained — only the slow and steady whir
of summer pushing itself from day to day.