ESFAHAN
The city lay in stillness, a limpid golden calm
suffusing the spaces in the trees; pale yellow leaves
still giving lightness to the trees, hazing the shadowy shapes
of the minarets, with purple edging the dawn.
The early morning winter’s light lifted the eye
from its shafts through the poplars, willows, birches,
to the high sky, not blue, but again, golden white and pale,
to the purpled mountains mistily goldening in the sunrise.
