reaching

Grabbing the cirrus clouds is hard work and requires a great deal of active
reaching. But it is worth trying.
A make-work project that stretches more than muscle.

Sometimes I wonder if I reach too much. Too high, too hard,
for nothing but soft spray
kissing my hand and gone -

tears of the earth, streaking across blue cheeks
pale with the long winter past, but deeper now,
regaining circulation and feeling and warmth -

I am reaching. The trees reach and the tulips push stubbornly up.
The filly jumps in ecstasy - she knows she will reach, maybe later today,
and the cat, heavy with her first young, prowls restlessly,
looking for a piece of earth to hold the sky down on for some reason.

Dropping my hands, I look and reach with my eyes
while the cirrus clouds untangle slowly on,
signatures of the running water
and its impossible flight against gravity;
its impossible lightness;

its contract with the cycling downpours
and shifting sea level;
its patient scaling of the heights
to touch the blue blue ceiling...

as if…