Flying out of the east in splendor
       the silver beauty of the wings, oh beauty
poised and driving like twin knives,
       and all those migratory lives
depending, as it happened, on the magic
 
of rivets and steel webs
       and pilots immune to fear — so be it,
he travelled west, before the sun could dog
       and trouble him, falling headlong
into a desert ground, seeded with aloes
 
and yucca and dryland sage:
       if the least of these seeded also a desire
to dive, to dig and bury his winged feet,
       to cover his travel with a delicate frost
and keep his eyes from leaning further west:
 
to say I will decide contentment
       as one decides the right soap for the wash,
or chooses the ingredient for a meal —
       so be it, may the peaks there overtower him,
reminder of his measure and short life,
 
let the wind lift every morning
       with common scents, and expected small delights,
his name be humbled and diminished
       for lack of yearning: Ah, yes, a clever man,
but where his passion went–?
 
Continued on, unmindful of the desert,
       the terrible, bleak terrain of it,
and perished in a gully, dried to a fine chili-dust
       that mixed with the sand and disappeared
for all its fire and redness.
 
That may be a kindness: to cull from his ambitions
       a circle smaller than his shadow,
an innocent hedge-row with a few slow flowers;
       not to ache so for so many colors;
that is why he travelled west,
 
dismissing Eden, perfect in its past,
       to praise and kiss his partners
for their human dress and dreams;
       to balance the rolling rock with the slanted path,
the day’s graces with the night’s small death;
 
oh, let the rest depend on silver wings
and say enough, as final as it seems.

Minneapolis, Dec, 1986

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