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EARTH

He stoppered the hemisphere, hemoglobin
or alluvial rhythms sink the soul — 
                               blink the divine, until
resilience forces sight
(but threatens to miss the reason
                               behind the eyes). 
Without naming the poison
he risks losing the light.

But the light is already gone.
He is left with the factors of denial.
The truth escaped
and left him ragged.
Blood and soil still thrum in his ears —
the misunderstood and unwanted,
                   in the dark,
                              in the day, 
       in the light of recognition — 
he becomes umbral instead.

The dead wander through the living.
They don’t know they are gone.
If he or she now, instead of two,
glimpse their single image in the particles of air;
they see us too,
and mistake themselves as alive.
Colliding on the sleeves of petals, 
maybe you and I are more reflection
than infinitesimal coils; returning, 
we — they — fractals of silt, lie taciturn
in soft, uncomplicated feathered frills.
Press the ribs against the breaking, 
against the need.  
                    Silent.  
               Adrift.
Flip the rain inside out —  
instead of petrichor,
a brokenness remains.

SEA

           Of mineral and bone
                    we once were known,
stamped into the chaos
of endless dust and stompy air
where, more than wind or stone,
we quelled the burden of breath, 
                alone. 

In the eclipsed shades of early grey
as tides churn deep to belly up,
white-tipped crests, rumbling,
           foam & sink — 
This, too, embosses stars
beyond the schemes of benthic dreams,
beyond the troika:
           earth, sea, sky. 

There is comfort in the ancient, 
in the ambient swallow, 
the yawn of the pink window 
reflecting the numinous sun sinking on
the other side of the sea; —
the altered sea below with its indigo depths.
The open flow of dark water tipped with
pearl-foam,
ephemeral as loam, 
rushes toes,
then folds our fingers, wrists, fists
in its ambiguous claws.         

SKY

We are become nimble in liminal spaces.
Far from arbitrary, you and I defy articulation,
just as the separation dividing earth from stars 
becomes something novel in its azure lightness.
Lightness of æther,
of essence
defining the separation, atmospheric; —
without it, earth and its denizens would crisp 
or implode.
(Gravity is quirky in that way.)
Tenuous balance of sun to serendipity —
while offering what is essential, necessary…
           Thanatos of circumstance,
           Thanatos of defiance,
                               Thanatos at theatre,
                               at art,
                               at play.