box of jars

Alison Palmer

in memory of RVN


Flight Is the Most Beautiful Word
	
	There's an ache inside the shadow 
		of waking; every morning
I pretend to be new. 

Cracks in the window catch sunlight,
			threaten the glass,
	and in the meantime, love
begs to be glued to the heart. The heart,
		a hole created by disappearance,
a distance the length of here to Heaven.

			I'm no belief, no
	teacher in the art of becoming; I've left
these seasons to themselves. Hope 
		fails to blanket the field. 

There's something to be said
			for winter's way
of creating silence in the white woods. Here,
		I speak to you as if my voice
lifts itself, an answer to loneliness
			we create in our sleep. 

I'm not sleeping. I'm not
who you thought I was; it takes time
		to accept the definitions
of flight: you fly through the air. You're a bird,
			flighting. 

If I imagine you, a homecoming
	the saints attend. The saints, 
and their desire to illuminate that which has gone
		dark; no star bright enough,
			the sky's strength
keeps what's become the beautiful-lost.