The Orator’s Ledge

 The Orator’s Ledge

How far ahead we stretch,
how we wait for the next answer to
all our hopes and fears
dancing like toddlers in the rain.
We can imagine well past the end of the year,
we can sightsee right into a century
surrounded by columns of sheep rounding the
fall-lines of green slopes. And we take note that,
next time we picnic,
it should be there where the manzanita meets
outcroppings, an orator’s ledge master-crafted
for voices we have only heard in our heads.

But when the air is thick,
when the mist is suspended like fire-ash,
the notes from the blue jays stay suspended overhead
long enough to be grabbed and pocketed by a lonesome wanderer,
unsure of his bearings,
and who never learned to whistle. The jay’s note will
serve in its stead.

How slowly we unwind,
how we throw our good pottery like fodder,
hoping the evidence will not find us reeking of gunpowder.
We are starved, we ache like body slams, and want to
return the favor. We fear there is more power in the
burning of books and barns
than in high school productions of The Tempest.
And, sure as we are, we break the orator’s ledge,
pledging to take down everything gained by honest admiration.
We fool, and will not be fooled again.