Letting it Go

by Darlene Cleary

I stare at paintings of sky now. Not

that I want to fly, or ever did.

The deepening of color, from faint

blue, to one like a sea, almost,

where leaning over the gunwale

of a small craft out from shore

ten miles or more, depth becomes

obscure. And so I am taken in…

I stare at paintings of the sea as well,

and cast myself among the swells

that rise and slap and drop. Turning,

turning to find myself within this

immensity: a rock, a spit of land,

but there is none, nothing, no place

to swim, and so I tilt my frame to float

and stare once more at sky. So this

is where I’ll stay, and I

and drifting violet clouds will

watch it all go by.