Land Road - Sea Lane - Vapor Trail

Cracked and dry September roads before
The rains come back. Emptied barns
Scratching the sides of the roads.
Rust of augers pointing into the sky.
Here the machines have lost their meanings.
They are steely Stonehenges following
Lost constellations. The galaxies
Have crept away from here.
We navigate by the stars of overpasses
And exit ramps.
Creeping into another daylight like
The one we have left.

In another time I will move through the
Ditches, as before.
The wide and slow ditches of another
Place. Making a small fire under a
Copse. The mornings will be without
Ownership.

In a true way, I will be where
You were. Seeking the other thing
We have came for.

***

The chop is light, our prow drives
Into the waves the winds cut. If
We were still, we could hear the lapping
On the hull. The lines are out:
We are trolling for a something.
The lines are baited.

I wish a nothing eternally. No strikes, only to
Cut the green water, to
Watch the horizon of white from the flying bridge.
Never to fight the fish,
And bring the gaff, and
Hoist the twitching sore beast from the water.
String up the unliving thing on the dock.

There is no way to touch this moment.
Before the strike and the screaming
Real, before the joy and the beers.
This is the here I have searched for,
The time before the inevitable cracks
To life, when chance has not doubled
Its efforts to bring us what we
Wished for in the quiet hours.
When chance has its own motives
Beyond certain.

***

And like that,
We have leaped up from the earth.
The fields sprawl out, the mountains assume
Their shapes as we know them from maps.
Until the valleys resemble peaks.
This is speed and truth.
Nothing is hidden at this height.
If you loved me, I can see it here.
I can see it here.

We move faster than the speed
of crows, but towards a what?
When did it matter, but before
I had crossed into a time
We shared, then lost like
Life passing out of a wing?