Foolish to be envious
when a gull hovers
overhead,
or skims across
wild, white horses.
Maybe celebrate
the breathlessness of wings
as you travel transatlantic,
a white Greenland under your lap.
Or when that owl
swoops through night sky
so that a mouse will die
remember the placid
wings of chickens,
trammelled, marinated,
wrapped tight,
in a local deli.
Choose whatever wildness you will
but first read the planet,
word by splintered word,
those fish pooling
in the rocks
where children play,
the tiger tracked down
and mauled by men.
At the close of day
see if your own numb skin,
is any match
for the cosmos,
its bewitching idiocies,
packed continents
where dinosaurs once wandered,
footprints too tiny
to discern.
