Say it is a pink deceit, the dawn sky,
a trick of light and atmosphere
shaped in the eye. The outlook varies

depending on whose eye we look through.
Yet for every eye it is true enough,
trawling over peculiar surfaces

until the landscape is commonplace,
bathed in a hot haze that plays
at the edges, until objects swim

on the road, in drought.
The bones know a heavy rain
will soon fall.

Say it is a grey illusion, that soon
the clouds will be bruised purple
and we will turn in our candlelit smallness

to our haphazard guesswork,
counting the seconds
between lightning and thunder.