you’re on a plane but you are not coming home,
waiting in line, third for take-off, a life through
oval windows, and you’re off again, gaining air
losing ground, time spend moving around,
departures and arrivals, runways and wind direction,
climbing and descending, landing gear,
it’s just another day, another day I drink tea alone,
another day the sky claims home
Distance is measured in absence and cups of tea.
Seasons fly like miles, wildflowers remind, but then go,
their faces hung with sorry. Distance lingers its space
in written kisses, muted colors, and shadows in between.
Music fills, then hollows, echoes, magnifies the far.
Measure it in cold, the blankets it takes to feel safe,
the uneasy sleep of reach, tired photographs scatter.
Distance is kilometers of untold stories, substitutions,
the poetry of isolation, the lapse of home, the missing.
Distance is measured in the expanse of the ache for you.
i got on a plane (i didn’t)
to look you in the eyes (you said don’t come)
and the sun danced with me (it was raining)
flowers floating, tender embrace (lying alone)
you wouldn’t let go, you breathed me (sobbing silence)
and held, and held, and held (let go)
waiting turned to love (wait)
we are one (alone)
Talking to the Clouds 