This poem is about my trip to an observation tower outside Galena, IL in 2005. I was having trouble coming up with a vacation poem that year, but a climb to the top of the tower and a view of the are near the highest point in that state took care of that. I've got another one in me and I'll get to it one of these days, but for now bear with me.

Can you touch the sky, my friend?

Can you touch the sky?

I climb so high,

until I see

the world in a glimpse

all around me.

I reach across and touch the sky.



Have you grasped the clouds my friend?

Have you grasped the clouds?

Just reach out and grasp the clouds

as they meander by.


Under this perch,

all I survey,

a far-off town

and distant places,

the rolling hills, the tidy farms

are all within my gaze.

Like scanning the Alps,

all the world I see.

I touch the sky, can you?