The problem, of course,
with returning from a wild place
is your feet can never seem to re-find purchase.
Like a newborn hoofed beast,
you end up splayed and on your face,
which is better anyway,
because it is heartbreaking
to keep looking up
and only catch a glimpse
of real light amid false bulbs
instead of the giant sky-bowl
you once drank from.
When down as low as the earth,
at least you can dream of up.

Soon, we will be like used matchsticks.
Used and falling apart at a touch.

We combust when in the same breath,
faint sparks of heat lightning
in a turbulent night sky.

Soon, we will share sleep.
Dreaming and living us,
in both places.

I miss the time of fingertip discovery,
when there were no folded instructions
or buttons with directions.

Today was a close call, at least…
there was a moment
when I looked out the window
(as a passenger)
and saw a ridge of trees – almost a blur
but for one limb dancing wildly
as if the wind chose to move just
that section of tree for me to see.
The way the sky looked satiny-blue
mwith just a wisp of cloud at the top/left
of my window view…
it threw me back sensorally
to the afternoon
when I was eleven
and the family was flying kites
on the hill by the school.
They stared at the sky,
in awe of clouds
while I was watching wind move grass.
I loosely held a spool
and was aware there was a kite above,
but a whole world was growing beneath 
me and I wanted to lie there for eons
and melt away into something
that could be moved by wind.

shaking away sleep
and patterns that haunt
I look to the sky
to the red-tailed hawk
who has been my companion
for years of sunrises
and foggy afternoons

he dips a greeting
as he wheels across dawn
and I mark his span
as welcoming as a lover’s embrace

somehow I breathe deeper
when I watch him soar
feeling myself not rooted
but flying too