Oh World I Cannot Hold Thee Close Enough

The jet wing like a dolphin cuts through
deep orange, brilliant, fading to gold.
Dark islands of clouds
push through like trees,
above them pale blue bleeding into
an infinite number of ever-darkening shades.

Thumbnail moon, one star, planet bright,
just far enough above the horizon
to be set in the darkest shade that can be blue
before deepening to black.

Scenes like this are like a long slow heart attack
spread over the surface of my life,
my heart exploding from a fullness
that I don’t know how to spend.

I used to feel like this holding
my sister’s newborn child.
I wanted to use his fragile beauty
and the wellspring of love inspired by it,
but lacked direction.

The sunset which first seems to fade
flares more brightly than before–
as, flying West, we keep catching up to it.
We sleep, we read,
move to the bathrooms and back again
shepherding children
like small sheep,
their eyes like berries turned toward the windows
and reflecting back fire.

Jets protrude like fins
which, shaped for reasons aerodynamic,
serve poetry nonetheless
as they swim for hours
into that orange sea.

I cannot get enough of
these colors, want to run to the cockpit
to feel orange wrapped around me like a scarf–
want to paint something significant
from these fiery embers
washing into pale, then deeper ocean blue.

Everything stretches out to a hypothetical vanishing point
seen through an airplane window
as we sit in the dolphin’s womb
waiting to be born.
And there is nothing to be done with this creation
except to create from it.

We are performance artists in this world,
our director sometimes here with us,
at other times distracted–
picking at a hangnail on a clay-crusted fingernail,
paint orange, blue on the cuff of his sleeve
still wet from dolphin fins.
Our purpose here lost like light
fading across an incredible canvas.

Yet everything above
and under us
once given up to night,
swells in us still,
reminding us
to hug the world tighter–
to squeeze life into it and out of it.
Hold it closer,
finding no meaning except being of it
with it in it having it in us.

“Oh world I cannot hold thee close enough!”
Understanding that.

For Ragtag Daily Press, the prompt is picturesque. This is an extensive rewrite of an earlier poem. The title is taken from the first line of a poem by one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Thanks, Edna, for the inspiration.