le ciel se replie
le saule suspend l’heure
l’eau médite encore
rien ne se sépare
la lumière se répand
entre deux instants
the sky folds inward
the willow suspends all time
water dreams in light
nothing divides now
light spills through the passing air
between two moments
As the scenery whizzes past
Muted clackety tracks scar
The countryside wide open spaces
Birds wheel and dive as sheep graze
And here I sit still
Writing poetry to the hills
A faceless weary commuter
Dressed in black clutching a computer
The skies stretch on forever
Clouds are a gentle zephyr
Speeding me from moment to moment
Until I'm just a leaf turning over and over
Now I know what it is
about falling leaves
in the bed of a distance -
each one following
the other a dance
that takes you away from the ground.
The numbers of us
slow us
when you take sound away -
a mass moving into a sky
of green, or blue, or gray,
or red
too soft to break.
Into the white
of a sun glare, dust-matted
into a ghost,
rain-spattered into
a portion of space.
Why pilgrimages are done in groups.
why a glide between trees
is as sleek as the wind.
Why you should
receive our words
as couched in symbols
on a DOS screen, or somewhere
beneath the ocean
all wire and chemical,
as a parchment waterlogged
as green -
as rain.
