Through the Second Sheet

Suppose I lay thin paper
over a tree drawn yesterday.
The branches show like quiet roads
beneath a morning haze.

I can give the leaves a copper edge,
or turn the sky from blue to gray.
The first tree waits below the second.
Neither needs to go away.

Here is a place to try the rain:
three slanting lines, a darker root.
Here is a space I leave unpainted.
A bird might settle there, or not.

I do not have to fill the branch
to prove that I can see it.
An opening can hold its shape
without a name beneath it.

And when the new sheet shifts,
the trunks no longer meet.
I lift one corner, find the old line,
set it gently underneath.

That small adjustment matters.
Not because the picture must stay still,
but because a change can have a reason
without pretending every change is skill.

The page allows another weather.
The tree allows another view.
I keep the faint, imperfect drawing
that helped the next one through.

Then leave both sheets beside each other,
their corners held by something small:
a smooth stone, warm in the imagined sun,
with no great claim to hold it all.