Crayon Clouds

What cloud islands today! Just how
a child I could have borne by now
would draw them, in all their crayon perfection
of loose-loop tops and crooked bottoms. Each
seemingly a nation, floating soft
in July blue.

My mind-scissors cut out
a piece of the parchment air –
I run to tack it to my internal refrigerator.
I want to rush home to hold her:
light long curls and a serious mouth,
a hug all arms and legs and weight
of total trust. Such heavy invisible love.

It’s not the first time this figment-child
has drawn me. I carry her
in hip-saddled grocery bags
and tell her of the castles along I-74, those
tall and grey and royal silo kingdoms
surrounded by green more Ireland than Illinois.

Yet, she is only me sometimes,
wanting mommy stories and a magic eraser
for all I wish I did not have to know
or fear
or hate.

To think I may have found the backdoor
to my own innocence…
laying under all these words.

Early Morning Sighting

Through fuzzy eyes, the International Space Station was seen by one just-caffeinated dj in the parking lot of Spirit 95 studios at 5:46 a.m. Wednesday. It amazed the humble early-riser to contemplate the view from that point of light - how all her familiar surroundings of buildings, county, state would be indestiguishable from there. That smoothly-sailing light won't even slow down if passes over the birth of a child whose mother was contemplating abortion just a few months ago, the death of a grandmother in Texas, or a group of Christ-believing Taliban prisoners. The dj turned her face back to the earth, feeling very small, yet somehow one with the universe. Before walking from the parking lot in a renewed frame of mind, she raised her eyes once more and said, "Stacey says hello!"

[dedicated to my friend Stace, who has inspired a little more sky-watching than usual.]