"Pale Blue Dot" - Zach Mitcham
“…the pale blue dot,
the only home we've ever known.” — Carl Sagan
The
world is speeding away from you,
like
Apaches with your hair.
But their hair is beautiful forever,
and
you've asked them to take yours
to see
what they can do.
When you wake, the golden edges
of the
blinds say, "come meet me."
You walk
the long road in the sunny weather
of motorcycles and antique cars.
Your
eyes fall on the beagle like rescue beams,
and he
greets you with the crazed joy
of a lonesome boy found on a dingy
in deep
water. You see your own heart
reflected
back, an elaborate animal pantomime
where you're the subject. His eyes say,
“Don't
you see, I'm doing you?”
This
brings you to your knees to stroke his head.
And when the rain turns the yard to oatmeal,
the
porch pumpkins lose their faces.
You
scoop one up, and don't breathe for flies,
to carry it to the cows, but it falls apart
in your
arms, your gift turned to orange earth goo all over you.
When the world speeds away on its horse,
you feel
the gap as a tightening string in your hand
like a
fish in the blue moving at high speed to break your line.
You have
no reel, just a heart like a bow.
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