Soapbox

Some autumn days
when the sun is lemon custard bright
and sharper than glass,
the trees in their robes of scarlet and orange
ignite when the light touches them
like votive candles  enkindled
to celebrate the beauty of day
and pray for mercy in the darkness ahead.

Some autumn days
the leaves beneath my feet
smell exactly like front doors slamming
and car engines starting,
tail lights dwindling at the end of my street
and they rise and fall around my shoes,
goodbyes not spoken, yet still clearly heard.

Some autumn days
the sky is so illogically, thousand-mile blue
and each cloud sculpted Da Vinci perfect
and I know I could be crushed beneath the weight
of a single bird streaking across it.
But when I tip my head back and throw wide my arms,
my heart rises like helium on a string
and realizing I have no more need for it,
I open my fingers,
let it float away to be with you.

I am perplexed by the apparentl uniformity of belief
in such a changeling concept,
the monolith from a million shards.
Like Eskimos with a hundred different words for 'snow'
there are so very many different visions of "God"
each  visage a chimera in itself.
And yet they have defined him here,
built him, immutable, of glass and stone,
of faith and surrender.
Scrubbed young faces chatter and text,
gathered here to celebrate their agreement on the definition of something
that mankind can never, will never, probably should never
agree upon.

What allows one mind to grasp and hold fixed
that which slips like glittering minnows through my own heart?
How do they imprint one design like footsteps in cureing concrete
when another finds only shadows in a whirlwind,
seeks but glimpses only a jellyfish opacity of desire,
a longing without focus?
Is there something identifiable that sorts them,
some stamp of purpose, cast of jaw,
or something not visible, perhaps, but quantifiable~
a particular fold of gray tissue
or tide of chemical messages
that tells them, steadies them,
looses them like an arrow to the same target?

Do they perhaps retain a characteristic my DNA
has rejected:
the ability to hear angel wings?