.
We were all rugged up against the cold
Scarves and coats and woollen socks
The sun came out, bright and glaring
Not warm, just sharp.
Casting light-shadows across our faces
Across the close dark weave of his coat.
.

In the south a storm brewed
But we were safe, here
In our slab of sharp sunlight
Surrounded by the cyclone fence
The graffitied wall, the empty showroom
The locked gates, the cracked carpark,
The weeds shooting through the bitumen.

We came for no thing, no solid
Thing to hold in our hands
We came for the light, the sunlight
Or, when the storm came, the cloud light
That fell in streaks between the rain.
We brought what we needed with us
And took only the light home
It is not a thing that you can hold.

But we will try, anyway.
It was yet another day that we could not hold
By mid-afternoon it felt all but over
It spilled away from us easily, too easily
We went to try and slow it down.
Only the capture of light, the taking-home of light,
Could slow it down, pause it for a moment.

We went home together in the rain.
The sunlight was gone
But we carried the light with us
Between us, around us, beneath the black umbrella
It’s not a thing you can hold
But we carried it, all the same.