bell-like

The year is made of horizon-fired days,
bell-like in their resemblance,
vaulted hollow,
empty by design.

No wonder the last thing you're likely to see
is the sky.
You might call out and name it:
niebo,
Himmel,
cielo.
A word for a thing
altogether not there.

A place for motes and beating wings,
redolence, semblance
and things too light
like mouthfuls of air:
farewells and syllables.

Unlike the earth,
its taste for mass—
in ravenous slaking tolls of
strobili, samaras,
cigarette pack cellophane,
javelins and tourmaline.
The fate of all things earthbound.

You know—swifts are birds that never land,
they spend their lives aloft.
One learns the art of waking up
in midflight, drift, in free-fall.

Between the substance and the song—
conjuring away misfortune.

Ballast—
the memory of a distant wintry sound
singular and skyward.

A day made of years.