skyward

 The crow slows the air as it jumps off the roof, swinging down the sky stretched out in the fists of its feathers, holding the atmosphere as it lands beside the curb. The day is hot, and thick with wings and miracles. From the rustle of doves in the pines to the tall slow spirals of wafting vultures, the flocks and feathers knock and tether the stirrings, the birds weave in the words to witness. Simple acts of flight followed by a bottled blue stillness. Black coffee to witness, words to loose skyward.

Time is a river, time is a tree, it’s a spell when I tell it and a catch when I call it. The grace comes free and changes skins like in a dream, the turn from beast to bird, the tree beneath the sky above. The streets rumble and the music drizzles down the glass, the stir of bird and bone the song of stick and stone, as the names wait dark and wild. Hot coffee by cup and pot, the day by truck and fly. On the other side of association, like a pile of greeting cards unsent because you got stuck on a postscript. On the side of the conversation that’s gone out.

This is the beating of the breath, the stirring in the atmosphere of our millions of essences, the work of wings between frame and sky. The heart holds on, this fire, this foundry. This heart holds out, old magic, ancient lore. The crow calls sharp across the tilt of shadows and the blazing west. David Bowie sings from beyond the beyond, his hips strange and slow to the dead man’s dance. The earth turns as it tumbles, staggering from day to day and night to night. The press of each breath as it fills and exhausts you. The feel of your elbows, sharp in your arms as you hold yourself tight. Every word the work of wings in your sky, every word tangled through your roots as you rise.