Where the Circle Ends

Mountain ranges

Morning red bathed ridges stab up at the trembling blue horizon
Grey slides lazily off rooftops
Lands on the incandescent ground and dies.
A flock of little men touch down on the this surface of porch light
Dawn’s foot soldiers return to march twilight across our faces
Skylights ignite and explode
Scattering shards of April around the room
But no one even lives here.
We’re too busy crashing our cars every morning in the same house.
Paving the same roads
Unwilling to walk them.
And even when we extend ourselves it’s only to be included
In a moment that stands still.

And so often we don’t struggle to improve conditions,
We struggle for the right to say “We improve conditions”.
And so often we form communities
Only the use them as exclusionary devices.
We forget that somewhere man is beside himself with grief.
Somewhere people are calling for teachers
And no one is answering.

Somewhere a man stands, walks across the room,
And breaks his nose against the door,
And somewhere these people are keeping records
Writing a book
For now we can call it “The Book About the Basic Flaw,”
Or “The Book About the Letter A,”
Or, “Any Title That a Book About a Man That No One Cares About Might Have,”
And as we turn the pages, we call out the sounds of a vanishing alphabet,
Standing here waiting.