POEM

Somewhere Over the Horizon

We see things our ancestors could never dream,

the way a horse’s legs are placed in motion,

a drop of water crowns and so defies the stream,

or petals open in a ballet, and the way the ocean

surges forward in a wild dramatic passion.

As though its arms were spread, its ideas hanging

on the skeleton of sky, then relaxes

into a softened bed of water—and sings

and whispers oddities along the axis

of the universe.  Old artists, with their parataxis

and their ideal forms of life leave us clinging

to impossibilities, soothe our doubts

with clever lies, like painted redoubts

against the nearly invisible horizon’s edge,

with aspirational illusions of eternal knowledge,

and blinding sundogs that encircle dreams with rings

of aesthetic lyrics and empathetic plastic things.