What is the measure of mortality
dangling on the end of a string
that hangs in the wind
against the weight of the sky’s
great nothing?
Is it listening for the sound of a songbird
echoing
in the dark and ever so faint?
Like a streak of light,
elusive, stranded
a lock of hair
standing out to show its age
a white bird buoyant
against the expanse of mountains
no longer caged by time.
You can imagine
spirits assembled around
the sunset statues of capital,
wings illuminated,
the waning light
unfurled like a cloth
coiling through banyans,
canopied in song
rooted, acoustic
this world a vibration
descending below
the horizon
like the moon and its ritual glow
I mistook for windows
when obscured by buildings.
I went to open the curtains
of my eyes
to let the sky in
to let a songbird fly out
before vanishing into thin air.
Everything fades
like a dream into the consciously aware,
these luminaries that pass before us,
the moon, the waiting clouds
what can be measured
by the light that is left behind?
yakskinpocketnotes 