This Sky

Fence posts stand at attention as I walk by,
silently marking out the perimeter of lawns
containing slices of private routine for the families who live
in the little made-up houses, going about their lives
behind drapes yanked over windows.


Cars whiz by that, though they differ in color and shape,
all make the same noise as they pass along the black pavement
neatly squeezed between the busy sidewalk where people
hustle by, staring straight ahead, always such in a hurry to get
where they are going.

The bus pulls away from the curb, carrying off all the busy people.
It would have carried me away too, but my bags were heavy 
and the way was too long 
for me to make it on a Monday morning.

The grass beneath my feet now is course and dry,
a brownish green community clinging resolutely to the earth.
As weariness sinks into my bones and worry creases my brow
I tilt my head up and sigh, closing my eyes to blot out the bustle around me.


When I open them again I am almost stricken down
by the glorious vision rushing in through my pupils and etching itself onto my brain.
Above me the world opens up forever into a vast expanse of blue,
achingly beautiful, almost too much space and color for my mind to comprehend.

White, solid, ageless cloud formations tower overhead, slowly 
easing their way over the world as far as the eye can see.  
I stare wide-eyed up into the largest thing I have ever known,
wanting to absorb its magnificence into every part of my very being.

The all-engulfing dome of blue stretches on over the horizon
and I am amazed at this whole other world miles above my own:
a world both beautiful and ever-changing, content simply to exist.


My head spins as I look up, my body feeling smaller than the blades of grass underfoot.
I had been looking down so long, judging the cracks in the sidewalk to be so big,
that I had forgotten how huge and open the universe above my head could be.

The next bus pulls up to my stop and I let the crowd move me up into the aisle.
I choose a window seat and keep glancing up through the smudged glass.
If there is one thing I am sure of now, it is that I will never forget,
and never again  lose sight of, this sky.