What do you do
when familiarity breeds contempt?
Do you think that’s why
we’re destroying our planet?
And, ourselves?

This river trip didn’t satiate
the ever-presence of self-hate.
There are thoughts that seem to negate
myself in the now, but, I am not she.
How can this be that freedom’s life
presents me with more enslavement by strife?
Writing, ripping, writhing, gripping,
twisting my mind? Worst of all,
I can’t see the end, can’t see behind.

The river rushes angrily
with the weight of roiling erosion
which rain has freed, whirling
away foundations of rock, gravid
with tumblings of cosmic clocks.

Dimensions loom we can’t consume.
A vulture rides currents of steam
from boiling of unstable Earth’s tureen,
gliding high above me, high above me.
With wings that shift in increments,
it stays aloft without regrets,
suddenly joined by another. I
want to soar with wings of love,
want to spiral up to find my other,
I cannot see how this can be,
the loss of me in terms of endearment.
I’ve paid my rent
with the guilt I’ve spent,
haven’t I?

I cannot place my finger on
the moment of time when time went wrong.
I walk on flood plain fields that seem
to curl their edges in fetid sunbeams
as I try to pace to the plane above,
furious at the displacement of love
with too much warning.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 9/4/05