A Poem for the Sun

Perhaps one day you touch the young branch

of something beautiful. & it grows & grows

despite your birthdays & the death certificate,

& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful

or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out

of your house, then, believing in this.

Nothing else matters.

All above us is the touching

of strangers & parrots,

some of them human,

some of them not human.

Listen to me. I am telling you

a true thing. This is the only kingdom.

The kingdom of touching;

the touches of the disappearing, things.

——

I’ve spent the day walking. My legs are tired from being so vertical and everywhere feels a bit dehydrated. I’ve covered sidewalks and bridges and crosswalks and rivers, passing over and forward and through. And all the while the sun stretched and shone and fell onto the ground, and my feet followed the clouds as they passed. I can’t remember the last time I spent that much time walking, with no other objective. And all the while I thought of the first question in this poem, the idea that our living is not guaranteed. Surely this can take on several meanings, but to me the thought implies that we need to take actively pursue living; it is not a thing that comes passively. It does not just happen, we have to walk to it. Especially on a sunny day.