Put Out to Pasture

The laboring was hell–

Meandering byways, animal highways,

I made my way to heaven:

 

June green nosed with sentinel pines warming to vanilla. Having scaled

with my grief-stricken heart, nothing soothed me. Looking to sage mountains?

The laboring was hell.

 

Then sky. Just air. I was clouds—my belly swollen with rain,

winds wisped my edges. My anguish drifted, dirigible inert, explosive.

I made my way to heaven,

 

having worked, bleeding under lash tongue. I rested: brilliant

sunset. I rested: pillowed on a cloud. Cliff, climb,

The laboring was hell—

 

a slog, switchback after switchback, becoming aloft. Let aeroplanes circle

moaning overhead, trekking from darkness beyond.

I made my way to heaven,

 

the heart clung tight—bruising, purpling under the thrashing pain.

I am climbing again, not stagnant. I gnash—ripping the aortic creature free

—the laboring was hell,

I made my way—skyfall—to heaven?

 

*”Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead” comes from W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues”