The sun plays hide-and-seek among hilltop trees
firing its paintball light
onto the valley water,
inventing strange angles and impossible colours
while shadow ice coats cracking valley walls
like deep-sea teeth
anchored in cold blood
and geese skate like beginners down the canal,
breaking the fragile surface,
reflecting, plunging in,
pretending to carry it off, not really surprised,
as if they meant it.
As twilight sidles in, I am drawn to the edge
as if I mean it,
but wanting to fly, not skate or swim – fly in the evening hilltop air,
arms wide, chasing the nearest star,
looking for that lost ladder up to heaven
I do not carry it off:
instead I watch baby eagles
plunging past light and ice
outside the nest,
falling, but never quite
hitting the ground,
discovering wings.