Do not leave me resting here
solid against the certainty of earth.
I want no reality, no weight
of physical existence,
take me somewhere over
the other side of the sky that
bleaches now where it used to streak in reds
and deeper colours,
once, long ago
when beauty was a visible perfection
all around my childhood.
Now, older and aging more
nothing sits well or remains still
long enough to be absorbed,
nothing induces tears, digs or cuts deep enough
to bring them crystalline and creeping into the world.
When did everything flatten out against
the flat dry concrete of the roads now lying
at my feet in place of all those
barley fields, beaches, those pine woods?
Tree bark, corn stalks, sea-smoothed stones;
textures I have touched my fingers still remember well,
palms still hold like imprints.
The taste of air (salt or fresh, as water)
is gone. Here where smoke and dirt sifts constantly,
irrevocably, inevitably, I am lost,
despite the gravity that's stuck me to this spot
and will not let me elevate
will not let me go.

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