The Winged Thing

 for Kellie

The winged thing aloft in flight appeared

immensely unexpectedly as if

it’d been a seed just recently within

the darkness of the Earth, and had emerged

anew and vigorous, as tall as cliffs

which plunge into the sea. Her arms outstretched

above the fertile valleys down below,

the bird traversed the arc of sky between

the brightness of the day and black of night,

the space which nothing we can see pervades,

and climbed the crumpled foothills up into

the altitudes whence she might catch a view

of what might lay beyond the mountain’s height.

If both the one and other side’s the same,

it still could be that what you see in truth’s

a beautifully-folded paper crane.