Ground Truth

My world is a clouded land
Of swirling snow and stirred-up sand,
               A plastic sky where here and there,
               Lost in artificial snow globe air,
An imitation textbook storm
Draws my forests in its form,
               Pulls my currents in its tide
               And sleets them on the countryside;
Breezes light, my tack offhand,
My beaches on the sea's last stand,
               On bays abandoned long ago
               And islands lost in indigo,
Nothing brighter when I was growing
Than a darkened forest, snowing;
               Trees my books and waves my rakes,
               Nothing more secure than flakes;
To this day my purpose still
The slow toboggan down the hill,
               Palm fronds weaving in the breeze,
               The heat of morning on my knees:
The only part of any race
The ocean weather on my face—
               My life a balmy accident of fate
               Buried in the water's weight;
My budding trunk no less believes
In autumn pigments in the leaves—
               Days of fire just as bright
               By the ocean late at night,
The summer's dandelion sails
As true as winter's snowblind gales:
               My sight projected on the sky
               And the planet likewise in my eye.

May 22nd, 2013