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We are awash with air, but there the air is
faint, overwhelmed by sky. That air plays light
chromatic chords on distant clouds--white
half-diminished, blue tritone, grey-flat major.
Mountains too speak softly, but with clarity;
they drift through sky and air, towards some
solid and nebulous future of their own.
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Some moon turned to me and asked for spare
stars, though they were closer to him than to
me. I showed him my empty hands, turned my
pockets inside out, then my bones, then my
gods. The moon spat, said I was holding out.
I didn't care. I had my own voids to consider.
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There was fire in torches and pits and minds, but
one part was reserved for separating insect souls
from winged flesh. I remember asking one of them,
as she died, what she wished her last meal had been;
she had only time for the consonant "K..." before
she was consumed entire.
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My gray matter is an unhappy medium, a clumsy
quivering gel, thick with introspection and
sloth. Mouth and ears (brain/sky interfaces;
semi-permeable idea membranes) are hampered
by this sadly limited internal transference.
I can only ask for patient and painstaking
absolution.
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Water, that egotist, was the loudest of the lot,
with bright and brash fanfares to herald its passing.
But its very arrogance limited its interest in us
to a perfunctory glance, brief, though snide enough.
And water, for all its pride, is also smothered by sky.
It only dares to exhibit itself when sheltered by
mountains; outside those protective walls, it cowers
and retreats from sky and sky and sky.
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And earth complains quietly about its weight;
the earth there, then, was 5% body fat.
But earth begrudged us our plays and ploys,
our earthy ways and joys.
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And, afterward, it had to admit
that we had filled its depressions,
for a time, if not forever. Do
not doubt that it shifts ever so
slightly, awaiting our return.
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