LEANING OUT

LEANING OUT


high above
the silent city
she spends
her hours
leaning out
toward the
high towers
and piercing
spires –
the bells
tolling
her desires
to breathe
through the
holes they
punch in
the black
star-sprinkled
sky


and
from them
the air –
reaching
her from some
ancient hill -
or the breath
of a mystical
messenger
sweeter still


and now
to fall
silently down
toward the
whiteness
of snow
and the
dark blue
shadows
beckoning
below


the stars
watching in
amazement
as they brighten
their glow
and the earth
flinches
impulsively
and waits
for the blow
of another
poet gone
mad with
thinking -
or with the
thoughts
that makes
it so


but the
poet is an
aged thrush
who flings
her frail
frame into
the wintry
gust of
iced flakes
and crystal
shapes of
every blush
and with
her might
she fights
to flutter -
as wings
bend and
songs stutter
while her body
tumbles down
through the
pall of night


just as
the winter
suffers
the snow
the paper
endures the
words of
the poet
as she goes
down through
the night
dangerously
dangerously
in her flight