does the butterfly
in the watering hole
of an elephant’s footprint
ask its purpose?
does it pause, wondering about the consequences
of the movement that flows so effortless from breeze to wing
and back again?
must I question the clip clop of flip flops on docks
in a comfortable air served up
for musing, for(e)seeing today?
solo, tufted heron in the mud
eyes my flapping elbows
as I push my cart of supplies,
chasing the space between
the planks.
can there really be no difference between the drone of cars
and my clomping along?
no space between my skin and the hovering, pungent salt?
no other stirring human is here to remind me
anymore of human behavior –
my hermitage moves with me,
each seen thing dances on the back of my mobile cave,
my one cranium wall,
every thought – shadows moving.
to take on a body, to buy a ticket to this short matinee,
one agrees to take one’s seat, one agrees to smell through one nose.
almost 50 years in this seat
has me settling in at last, to this – my single, solitary
point of viewing, for now, and with this sigh
as deep as hip bones,
some thing pulls back a curtain.
the ache of aloneness blows
out the clotted vein,
blasts away any clinging to an artery.
once again
I pulse the beat of birds
who never knew difference between my eye and theirs,
between my foot or some claw.
I’ve a feather in my mouth from your molting –
you’ve a candy wrapper in your nest from me.
Life as Improv 