Air So Still

Searching the afternoon sky,
finding sudden cover - dark, like evening;
against the backdrop of low, gray clouds,
my skin feels the weight of this summer day.

In air grown so still
the black vulture cannot glide.
She efforts to climb only to drop again
until near still treetops, I lose sight
of  broad, dark wings

The buzzing cicada brings my focus
to the garden fence
it flies headfirst to the wooden boards
and then again, drops to ground
rises yet again-- such a search-
 for completion lies only ahead

 The path of life is but a bridge
to the moment we try to hold,
and time has no care for the journey.

We are
captive of a thing we cannot see
spoken-to in a language we cannot understand
bound by hopes we cannot deny; and so
we are
as the cicada at the wooden boards
a long journey into a brief daylight
and desperate flight for purpose

And the vulture circles back, her effortful flapping
of broad black wings
for in air so still and filled with my thoughts,
it cannot gently glide by