Plunge

                   A tall collection of tiny feathers

                   flurries down before us, soft and white
                   and gray.  Each is full of lofty air,
                   full of many opened wings after
                   a long downstream of breathing.
                   When gray clouds come with rain to
                   soften us into trust and pleasantries,
                   we will be kept dry in this and
                   smell like a warm new egg.  It feels
                   like strange dark love filling us.
                   We learn to breathe without learning
                   what it is we should understand--
                   the hearty crimson trees; new
                   tulips in bloom, young and tall and erect;
                   the pumping wet lungs inside our moving,
                   like large ripe red peaches curled in jars.
                   A pair of silent swans passes by together
                   over a sky full of songs.  They are cradled
                   together after an empty nest and a rich harvest
                   in which no gifts were expected or received.
                   So much desire stirs inside of us;
                   vast inclusions of which we are unaware. 
                   They exceed the cost of slipping into easy
                   harbors where the naked wind sleeps,
                   where currents and stones are limiting,
                   where the mistrusting craze of solitude
                   gathers us down into our own tender limbs
                   to hold us hard on the inside until we open
                   ourselves like sails and soar gently
                   toward the open silver ocean to join
                   the flocks already waiting there.