We stood waiting in the park with our glasses,
our phones and telescopes,
but it was the wall that caught my eye –
a child pointed, someone gasped: the leaves
in the wind, trembling hundreds of crescent suns,
pale mouths of shadow, each one a little eclipse.

For a moment the city seemed to thin.
Under the streets, under the stone, under the names
we give things – the old black pool.
We looked up as if something were happening there.
But it was happening everywhere – in the leaves, in the wall,
in the small cool shadows passing over our hands.

And then the light returned. The people began to leave.
The tree stood against the wall as it had stood before,
as it had always stood, and would keep on standing,
though now we knew what the light had been hiding.

Adam Wyeth is a poet, playwright and essayist and the author of five books. His most recent work, about:blank, premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival, and There Will Be No Silence premiered at the National Concert Hall.