Jan Hill

To The Cloud Juggler

i.m. Hart Crane

There is only the shifting of moments

A mind brushed by sparrow wings

You slept on yourself –

On fragments

Unable to pick the arrows from your side

They say; one glance

Could cross the borders of three states

In eyes that upheld some dream untied –

Where time waits

Shadow cuts sleep from the heart –

Cobblestone worn

Swooping in eagle feathers down your back –

Airborne

Hands that seem like wings of butterflies

To touch those hands

That counted nights

You were there falling; and you fell;

Whose leaps commit such blazing lights

Kodaked somewhat out of focus

You drifted,

How many hours you never knew

You were a child,

Like me –

On a loose perch

Leaning from the window

When the train slows down

Fighting with blind fists of nothing

You poured your words into the broken world

With a heart that cast its line in troubled water

To skies impartial, that did not disown you –

Or claim you either

To create what I hold healed,

Original now and pure

There and beyond, my other hand –

On my heart

Is plummet ushered by those tears that start

Relapsing into silence

Wrapping us and lifting us;

Drop us then returned –

Onward without halt, -

Not soon or suddenly

No never to let go

Outside as soon as you could get away

From the company to find

The only rose on the bush in the front yard

Here at the water’s edge

The hands drop memory

Your footsteps

Walking the straight road toward thunder

You left this world hanging in the night

One star, swinging, takes its place alone

And time shall set –

The morning stars adrift

Jan Hill © 2008