walking transparent

sometimes i can’t get words out of my head. like lines from a poem with a forgotten name. only resounding whispers of a hollow accented voice. not as easily brushed away as fallen hair across the face. through the wind. about birds and man. hope. clarity. understanding. the certainty and truth of flight. there were no birds in the sky today.

(. . .)
I celebrate the sky dance
of gulls and petrels
attired in snow
as though I had
a standing invitation:
I participate
in their velocity and repose,
in the pause and haste of snow.

What flies in me is manifest
in the errant equation of those wings.
-- excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s “The Flight”

the snow hasn’t yet begun. the sky is dark. i feel it in my bones.