If water if constant 

when nothing really is, 

then what about flight 

and the world’s slow swivel on its axis- 

what is slow, by the way 

because I can’t figure out 

how minutes creep patiently, 

prolonging agony when it suits 

yet I lose hours daydreaming 

about flight and various shades of blue… 

I think I have questions 

that I don’t want answers to 

since imagining all permutations 

of falling is better than actually doing it.

The color bled down the canvas 

in the most beautiful blue sliding cry, 

I was overwhelmed 

by a feeling of unity 

with all the copulating stars

and resulting storms.

The red-tailed hawk pierced my 

section of sky. He was strong, 

focused, deliberate. Like a sky sculptor. 

He may have power over his currents 

or it may be the wind gives up 

in the face of stern beauty. 

There’s no replacing touch, unseen. 

Lights are a distraction from the wind 

slapping me in the face but 

I don’t notice the pain really. 

She’s lingering like a wounded firefly

somewhere amid the hedges 

but I don’t think her wings ever worked. 

Choosing to stay still is a myth. 

I’ve taken to wearing moonstone 

more frequently than pearl 

and I like to dream about trees. 

Like soft rock in a cool climate, I am 

shaped, turned, colored by incessant 

banging of sunbeams on mountains. 

The softest parts haven’t worn away. 

They had trouble keeping pace 

in a wood of succession, not quite 

understanding they were lost. 

The horizon is like a make-believe friend 

when deep in the forest; a gust of 

comforting warmth a welcome mystery. 

Endings are life-affirming and rhetorical. 

The days feel like we’re looking at

the same sculpture over and over

but with a slight pivot of the plinth

so that the view isn’t quite the same

but the body remains unmoved.

The chisel marks are a wonder but

it’s sad and cold and very still.

It’s mid-January at world’s end 

and they’re making milk out of everything: 

goats, pencils, and non-ironic GPS. 

Wild boars are slowly taking the suburbs 

while homeowner associations cling 

to pre-measured shrubberies. 

Children know about racism and saffron 

but I recall the days of chalk 

and skinned knees. 

Will there be nostalgia for phone wires 

or will we have radar to navigate 

since the sun will have burned our retinas?