The Earth Retraces its Steps

but has forgotten the way home. 

 

When a nightingale sings 

               in the middle of the day,

no one stops to listen. 

 

Seashells in a bucket. 

               Time trapped in a bottle. 

Voices slicing through radio static. 

 

Dew on the deck 

               scintillating in the early hours 

like a sheet of glass. 

 

Once, 

               I caught a glimpse of the horizon

from the height of tranquility. 

 

As the plane resisted 

               the natural pull of earth, before

all my vices returned, 

 

I felt myself flow towards 

               that undefined space  

shaped in the form of good

things to come. 

               Jazz in the corridors,

the press of warm bodies. 

 

Pennies in the pool 

               and wet leaves crunching 

beneath my feet. 

 

Another season has passed. 

               All texture, 

no instructions. 

 

Now— 

               I drift between nowhere 

and everywhere like a song 

without pause, 

               and rhythm, 

and end, 

 

turning to sound.