I'd rather not be the cramming--or even the plunking--of pegged shapes into a wooden box,
Or even the steady click of a metronome,
Or the shifting forms of shadows on a wall,
And, please, God, don't let me die in the husks of letters, tossed in a box or left to dry on the floor--
I'd rather be made of clouds and stars, like the sky,
Always a different design, but somehow always part of a pattern
Of bright and dark and blazing and muted:
Not perfectly foreseeable, but perpetually beautiful and new.
I'd like to be made of spaces far apart and wide,
So that I can see it all through the filters of my satellites yet remain my own world,
But still be able to edge a bit closer when I'd like to look.
And let me live in a modest cycle
So that, even though I may be untouchable, I can touch;
So that, even when I am gone, I am here:
The color of a tempest, the mist in the morning clear;
So that I might be glimpsed, my outline sketched by memory's hand, my tears and breath surmised by the skin,
And last a little longer.
