With great abandon, here go I,
with wings a-beating in the sky
I crafted them upon my table;
now drying them in windy streets,
when laughed at, my visage here retreats
Sometimes find me in hotels
after collecting stones and shells:
till erupts an argument
twas not my original intent
When then they ask a vague question …
“What is it?”
I respond, you must go visit
and when you finally actually go
you’ll hear me think ‘bout Michelangelo.
Within the oil stained window-panes,
inventions brew, and so do pains,
I work until the late evening,
making things that look like drains,
as smoke puffs from warm chimneys,
Now testing, I take a fearless leap,
and deep, I fly into the night,
while all my friends are fast asleep.
Then quickly, not heeding time
over the mountain, past the street,
reflecting wings on window-panes;
there will be time, there will be time
to prepare a flight to faces meet;
And then more wings I will create,
for all the other idle hands
who love adventure on their plate;
but then will be no time for me,
with feathers plucked and indecisions,
and for a hundred visions and revisions,
till I can rest with morning tea.
Till then will people come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And then soon will come a time
to dream, to even dare?”
time to appear upon the stair,
and with a flutter of my hair —
but now the air is growing thin!
my harness cradling waist and chin,
if I left out a single pin
my wings they do look awfully thin!
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
I do this all the time
make snap revisions which a second shall reverse.
And now go feathers one and all:
not in evening but afternoon,
I have created new wings with spoons;
I hear the screams as I fall
as if already they see the emergency room.
What do they presume?
Those eyes who witnessed my fall all—
mutter a horrifying phrase,
then when I feel as needles and pins,
I view that hole of light in wall,
this is how shall my end begin
in heaven with its winged ways?
And what do they presume?
-Sandra Johnson, 6/23/19