I stretch my arms,

reach from deltoid to fingerprint for the energy of burning stars,

fold them to my side wishing

full hearted they were the things with feathers,

desiring, desiring, deeply desiring the very wings

of the morning—awake, invigorated, enlightened

to rise up from the hesitant darkness,

out of the dread of repetition,

to live aloft in spontaneous currency with the wind,

to rise, plummet, and swirl,

live like a kite circling among the triangle

of soil, stars, and soul, stroking the wind,

muscles, rhythm, feathers, beating, moving

against contrary currents,

against the flow of time,

against the argument of gravity,

see below the earth’s great happening,

the green brown blue unwinding

always wound up in itself,

its task bounded between horizons,

see its naked mundanity,

see it as mere nesting ground,

and dart again high

in a far-reaching dance of hilarious joy!

Rockford Johnson is an avid reader of poetry and is fascinated by the winged life and the flow of rivers.  He writes and delivers what he likes to think are creative and meaningful homilies almost every week—perhaps even a bit poetic.  Several of his poems have been published in journals and collections.