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Today the maple tree is the mirrored shape of the white cotton boll clouds that are holding all the blue back from the horizon. Leaves, three green hues, sharp and still. The sun bright and harsh, throwing shadows so deep and so dark that they could be marked in ink. Anything close to the ground is bent in heat line waves. The house finch and its partner have sang a sharp tune all morning, one loud and bold while the other selects the most appropriate piece of straw. The air holds only a fickle breeze since the swallows have fled to the shade. It is all of it more than a tree, or a bird, or a cloud, or a breeze. It is a moment, and a world. It is yesterday, and tomorrow, and today.