Departure

            The earth hugs us to it.

            The sky is a blue force

            Turning our days,

            Pulling the sea,

            Dragging the globe

            Through its circles,

            Making our blood move-

            And the earth holds us close.

            The trees hold us in.

            The sky isn’t blue:

            It’s black and white,

            It’s birth and death.

            Sometimes we feel

            Like we’re in the sky,

            Slowly diminishing in size

            Balloons lost from children’s hands.

           

            The sky informs our dreams,

            Our aspirations.

            We paint it and angel it.

            Heaven’s up there,

            God, gods, the good

            And the universe too-

            Vast stretching answers

            To our tortured questions.

            When we trip up

            In our dreams

            And our heart

            Wakes us up,

            Our body jumps

            Out of death.

            It jumps over

            The gap, the space

            The emptiness

            That nearly took us-

            The big blue sky.

            We hold each other in place.

            In the departure lounge

            We sigh and tut

            But in the aching space

            Above the clouds,

            In the infinite idea of blue-

            Hands, unearthed, clutch hands,
            In the cold truth of the endless sky within.