We forgot
we were spirts for a while.


An innocent Sparrow hits
sliding glass doors,
stunned, wobbles backwards,
must intuit new balance or die

No we are not like the birds
who transcend
we are just humans,
forced indoors, forced ever
inward and down to the ground,
badgered when not
enlightened by our failures
in sight and imagination

blinded our needs
that force us to learn
to see in the darkness
what we have taken
and face what we owe.

to the tribal lives, the wild things,
the horses,
the gift of art as a way of life,
and now all that beauty
and nature are stored
within the soil,
as vibrations.

Perhaps this is better,
where no man now may take
this last chard of freedom.

Perhaps our birdness is safe after all.
Our release in giving back,
in going down,
in living with
the proper attitude
of peasants (even as others move yuppily
about this privileged valley
lacking true broken-hearted caring).

But whether yuppie or peasant,
what is here today
may be taken from tomorrow,
especially joy built on others’ sorrow.

But if it be so, that we no longer can grow
together for places some can not go,
be not so bereft,
for in gravity is the pull and the play,
is the swing and the ball
up going down now,
and without movement
there is no life at all.

Be glad to be alone now, even if failed
as you perceive yourselves to be,
husband or unrequited other, be
glad that you chose to be human.
No longer significant
others or beloveds,
more insignificant and feeding
like a babe on your own tears now,
return your longing
down into gazing
and opening your blind eye
to the light you invited
that you mistook as human,
from which you fashion a wife, a job, a “self."

It was only a sliding glass door
that stooped and stunned you
as you soared innocently down
to engage all that is harsh in this world.