Some Assembly Required
What calls from an unsettled space
between the tall cherry tree and its stumpy neighbor
where opposite branches reach into each other
perhaps for air and sunlight missed by the other
by a sensing and a desiring we observe
but dare not name, for fear of offending
the unsleeping guard-dogs of materialism
filling some of the comparatively empty space
with sturdy brown branches bearing leaves
or perhaps responding to a more subtle calling
a future shape as yet unshaped and yet in a sense
pre-formed, like an device we have ordered arriving boxed
but needing some assembly, and thinking
it is a model car we open and begin
but discover it is a small plane, or stranger still
a few weeks after we assemble it as a car
we find it has returned to its box
and will only assemble as an airplane
what we imagined as grounded commuting among ordinaries
has turned to flight for sites unusual, bizarre
as fish become amphibians and our children strangers
The Dog Star 
Leave a Reply