Featherweight

When the strength you need

becomes all of the strength

you've given...

When unexpected loss

Takes your breath away

too...

When you balance 

All of your own weight

on your own 

two feet

without feeling

push or pull...

Flight may occur

When your vision is blurred

from speed, you see,

Direction is irrelevant

to destination.

When arrival is relative

to departure

and landing is only

One stop

of many...

It starts to feel 

Easier to open 

Both arms, wings 

and just soar...

A rough legged hawk soars over Seedskadee NWR, looking for its next meal. Photo Credit: Tom Koerner/USFWS via Wikimedia Commons.

Grief is the thing without feathers

Keep going

an hour longer than you think you can...

Strength 

is not how heavy the load

or capacity 

to measure up

against the weary

whose Joy

dwells in Nothing-

of want

Everything back,

as though undo was a direction

from undone.

When Lost;

the Way, the Hope, the Time,

the trust

the will, the want, the why-

The sun rises its warm cheek 

lighting the low flame

of a fresh poppy 

bursting through the winter mud.

Anyway the next step,

the next moment

finds me

empty and lighter and

unable to grasp ahold

of any-thing-any-body-any-way

right or left

or stay 

strong long enough

to make sense

of Beauty. 

Painting by Auguste Allongé (1833-1898), 'A Walk in the Forest' c. 1873 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What lies ahead

Sun lifting the veil of purple sky-

might bronze forge strength

pungent as the turned dirt?

Thirsting through 

exposition, hide and seek,

those are lost and winding back 

around-

those that reap

shall be held against the light

shall cast atonement into the shadows-

thou shalt be measured against the day.

All ways an arm's length

a way-in every direction

aimed 

this focus spares no details 

no enunciation of echoes

when molding bodies

come to day with arsenals

of color intended to define us

by just what they had

known and felt 

against all alchemy

made from the excesses,

there was the sky 

with directions. 

Painting by Maksymilian Gierymski c. 1869 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.