Everything moves.  Nothing stays the same. 

 

 

On a hot humid day, the air shimmers as it rises 

 

The light blue sky above keeps shifting shades 

 

And the seagull hovers but glides across the open space between the trees 

 

Of a sudden a gust of wind blows up 

 

And stirs the sandy beach into small tornadoes. 

 

The drifting of the clouds draws my eyes 

 

And makes me dizzy 

 

As if the solid earth on which I’m lying is also turning. 

 

The grass bends but resists and continues growing. 

 

 

 

And when I look at paintings 

 

The still life lines pull my vision 

 

In squiggles and in splotches 

 

And a myriad colours move in waves 

 

That overwhelm my senses 

 

And electrify the neurons 

 

That tell me what I’m seeing 

 

In messages that travel up and down my spine. 

 

The playful game of catch between the it and me. 

 

 

 

And the music when I hear it 

  

Drums on my ear and pushes on the bubble in my chest 

 

That starts to sway in timing with the beating 

 

Of this external heart that’s throbbing 

 

And overflows its liquid that now starts flowing 

 

Through secret veins that reach my entire body 

 

And pulls my head from side to side 

 

And overtakes my shoulders and my hips 

 

And somehow shakes my feet and legs 

 

Until I’m dancing. 

 

Swept up by sound, I trace its pulsing steps across the floor. 

 

 

 

And life itself keeps moving 

 

My wrinkles keep on growing 

 

The body’s shape keeps shifting. 

 

 My children keep on going, 

 

The solid house in which I live still settling, 

 

The rhythm and the rhyme of living. 

 

 

 

So this is beauty, this endless changing of the stars 

 

And my aging teeth 

 

The great arc of the sun and planets 

 

And my smaller swoop through space. 

 

 

So while we can, let’s share the dance together 

 

Let’s watch the darkening sky 

 

And the rising of the rainbow 

 

And hear the whistled tune of songbirds 

 

And whatever else of movement brings us joy. 

 

 

I am lying in a park looking at the still cloudless sky 

 

While across this canvas in a line like a fly 

 

A small plane comes buzzing, 

 

Distant, yet inside me when I close my eyes. 

 

The grand and minute grinding of the spheres.