Thirst
This year I’ve felt the push of antlers
thrusting out of my head.
I’ve leaned my head many times toward the grass, stretching
my neck to drink. This year
I’ve awoken from the catacombs of sleep,
my cheeks wet with spring water,
my heart beating like a river
sprung from rock.
Sometimes in the open you look up
to see a whorl of clouds, dragging and furling
your whole invented history. You look up
from where you’re standing, say
among the stolid mountains,
and in that moment your life
becomes the margin
of what matters, and solid earth
you love dizzies away from you
like the wet shoreline sucked back
by that other eternity,
the sea. At times the spinning
earth shrugs you off balance,
gravity loosens its fist, hoists you into the sky,
and you might spend your life trying to recover
this nearness to flight.