Present

Sometimes a tidal wave of unfiltered detail

overwhelms me; how small I am then,

swept away as if, spellbound, I saw myself

from the altitude of a plane window -

it is as close as I'll ever be to the eye view 

of a bird.

And I would not recognise any defining feature

from that distance, I would be indiscernible 

from any other speck waving back.

If I think about what is little to me:

the diminutive hedge kings who flit

their paroxysms of fear,

or the fly that seems to rest carefree 

on the almond sickliness of meadowsweet, or

even the dew, indifferent, that manages to reflect

the amber magnitude of the morning sun.

I see that I have made a fraction of myself,

I am a wren, perhaps, who can only take higher

flight upon the back of a bigger bird,

lost to self-deception.

I have always felt that I was a visitor

in the lives of others, and as if this is what's shaped me,

I became someone who did not belong anywhere.

The sands shift, but there are desert regions

in my heart still, that are bird-less, where I have fled

from people and memories - though it's so hard

to resist them - that sense that your past

truly knows you - a complicated, old companion,

though it is this mirage of cold smiles

that restrains you from yourself in the present

when there is only this.

Image from pixabay.