Sight

In compression things are clearer

Part of age is to be shorn then move on

Blue limbs streaked with mud.

The Greeks handled this thing best

But we wouldn’t know it from

Their culture scrubbed through Byzantium

No thought to individuals

De-veined in battle like shrimp

Standing in poverty before the sun

Weeping its course

Over the spine of the Peloponnesus

The sea lends sight, the salted

Air clears the vision

And maybe that’s the pressure there as well

The birds against it continually

Feed in vats of silver and grey

And home in holes worried

Into the cliffs

Who needs perfect vision in the lighted

Room of this new selfhood but them?

I’ve talked to them and they to me

So politically we have found a hold

And a way to let go 

Coursing through the air

Hovering in place against headwinds

Our children down there somewhere

Their round heads up like saints to 

See our shadows against the sun