On a Wing and a Prayer
Lawrence Burns
(son of Marilyn McDonald who wrote A Brief History of Tassajara)
Can a poem speak,
angel or arrow,
soft truth or swift answer—unavoidable?
Imagine the flight of a faded pink diamond
kite.
Aloft by a string. Balanced between Icarus’
youthful illusions
and Bellerophon’s bitter regrets.
Oft admonished, we are extolled, “focus on
being in the present.”
How best to do this?
I want [to] fall in present (sic). As in: to
fall in love; not to fall in line.
The kite in my mind—it trembles in the
breeze, painfully alive: albeit, aloft.
I’ve long imagined that I’d emerge, epiphany-like
into the present
as if it were the epicenter of some to-be-determined, right moment.
Arriving concisely with some precise insight;
Aretha Franklin shattering my illusion with a song?
A shattered egocentric exoskeleton: freed
self, [finally] enjoining with life’s
melody.
And still, I meander, discovering multiple
epicenters, all falling in to the present. Alive.
The creek bed is still and yet the waters
meander.
There is no “it”. No “moment.” Only melody.
Wafting. Forward.
A soft pink kite flutters. Almost errantly.
Aloft and rising slowly,
while the waters move swiftly
in the dawn.
May, 2019
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