Gravity in Our Hands
       

We forget about the universe,
buried under cloud cover.
Our own lives loom larger
and larger, our heartbeat
settles on the rhythm of others'.

Last night we made our bed
on grass, under stars that fell
and converged as we rolled into one.
The dogs' barks bounced
from boundary line to boundary line
before they circled the sorrowful
howl of the coyotes' feast.
And somewhere, a cougar-story
your grandfather gave us
came alive, prowled around us until
we could feel our hearts' red alert,
could hear our own pulse climbing wildly.

In the morning human sounds,
like sticks and stones, wake us
but we wear something new.
Light, older than earth, slips in
and the darkness we wrapped around
our skin remains to be seen.

When we walk the bright green fields
where leaf and stem are stacked
against winter's hunger and summer
is silently folding itself into
stray piles of rocks, the sun pours over
our hair. the color of dry grass.

Our hands find the others'
gravitational hold and pull
with all the time in the world.

Copyright © 2010 Noël Hanlon All rights reserved
from Blue Abundance
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission