Like a junkie checking connections

Or a trader watching the big board,

I find, these days, my eyes turning skywards.

Watching the trees I imagine the wind

Catching the jib, or filling the main sail

Like a lovers chest.

Words like halyard, or jibing, and phrases like,

Helm’s alee, or, beating to windward,

Are my new vocabulary.

My dreams are filled with that mystical place,

The seabed, which lies below us.

My new occupation is charting a gliding course.

And I seek only the wind for guidance.

I woke to find

I had lost my mind

Now where could it be hiding?

It wasn’t there,

On the chair,

Where normally it would be residing.

Without my link

I couldn’t think

My head was truly reeling

For now I depend

On my little friend

And I had a sinking feeling.

I’m not in control

I have a new role

Changes are coming ever faster.

For humans it seems,

Be it nightmare or dreams,

Have created our own new master.

What to make of this cloud on the lake.

Or the banging of the woodpecker, heard but not seen in the earth cloud that blocks all but the slightest glimmer of a morning to come.

The eagle is sitting primly on his perch.

He sees it all, and considers me and dog as we trace our morning steps.

Does he wonder why we return each day? Are we friends, or just cohabitants of this empty beach?

What will become of us my hoary friend?

You captive of that tree, and me, doomed to cycle back and forth between home and work, and home again.

Meetings, dive bombing into the lake, bus rides, perched on the tree, more meetings, more dead fowl, or perhaps a fish.

Where is it all leading us?

Oh what a pair we are, dear sir.

Let us make a deal. I will take your perch, and you my staff meeting.

I will watch the circling ducks, dodge the diving crows, and skim the gentle ripples across the lake.

You go to the office and rip their flesh for me.

Just once, just a little peck.

Just enough to let them know, let us both know.

To let us all know that we are still alive.