Everything makes more sense
from the sky.

On the ground,
rivers are vagabonds.
We make maps to tell us their motives,
but maps are like the leftovers
on chalkboards after lectures.

We go to riverbanks to study from our notes,
but the world is no textbook.
Rivers are bold travelers,
train hoppers, street sleepers, moving
moving on.

Close up they are messes of mud,
erosion and flood,
violent, then still, stagnant,
twisting for no good reason,
making islands and marshes
out of good, solid ground.

They are like some people you sit next to on planes
who cannot answer where they’re from
where they’re going,
ultimately,
they don’t know.

The airplane window is small and smeared,
but I can see the story from here.

This river forms from the fallen sky
that swarms over the rocks reaching toward it,
burning and brimming from the center
of the earth.

Gravity gets to us all, sometimes, gives us more
of what we need—
momentum for movement.

I see from the sky that
this river has always loved the sea,
and will go there to touch her hips
again and again.
Over and over, it will enter the sea.
This is what must be.

I want to see my life from the sky.
To be able to point to something real and say
I will wear down mountainsides
and carve canyons, I will be damned
for this desire—

To point to the headwaters,
then point to the mouth, to say
this is where gravity and love
will pull me for all time.