"How to Make Way for Something Bigger than a Tree" by Vasiliki Argyris

Do birds fear heights, the way we fear living? Pigeons above all, always so low to the ground, and squirrels, not avian but aerial, crossed wires with cheeks full of preparedness, We risk so much to prepare for so little, The mourning dove is watching from a higher branch this evening. Their wings are the green of the faraway part of the sky during thunder, They strike it rich on a wire, before the mute storm, The atmosphere bursts like a train through the neighborhood, The train has come to see what it can pummel, but everything has been cleared for its path, It is an arrow, Just the air breaks, and the sparks flick themselves until they burn on air and die. Composed of listening light, orchestral sleep is prescribed, Upon every eyelid, over goose-down or under bridge, The green pretense knows no leisure, Our dreams underneath its weight are dastardly, but doctor’s orders are rarely easy, Even the even-handed ones, It's only Wednesday when the sky mimics the diamond’s light, cupped over my finger. All things, almost, you can never have cupped long enough to hold, So love becomes a marriage, and lightening a sound, so late, so late, In one baroque spring, could have been this year or sixty-five million before, Dirt’s veins strike it rich. ————————————– Vasiliki Argyris called us from Philadelphia, PA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems