We're trapped, my friend told me, in the body.
That's why everything we do is about flight.
We dream of birds, watch them pepper the sky
in migratory lines that coil and uncoil
such hard instincts in deep September.

A swish of red holds a maple branch to canvas
on the back room wall where television light
flicks stories over plaster. And the stamp,
a robin, brings news from someone lost.

         *

Across the ridge, I watch the sacred V of geese
disappear into blue clarity, feel the empty sky
in both legs, the heavy absence on my shoulder.

All the delicate particulars: landscapes in miniature,
the constant fable of wind through trees,
the raw life willed to high, lonely spaces.