The future, she said,
relies on our stomachs,
growling for something
other than edible, something younger,
something deferring the Earth,
the indispensable effort of the blind.
It’s okay. Don’t trip. It’s not necessary.
Mind the walk of the native, she said.
Feel for her next footstep.
Place your heel in the ancient clay
turned bone from decades of migration,
and watch for golden-eyed eagle.
She’ll land on precarious cliff,
stones threatening imminent erosion,
raise a brow, wedge of a beak mouthing,
“Can you really be that naive?
Did you think it would be that easy?”
Perhaps she will mock or hiss, but see
as she lifts the tip of a veined feather,
points east, towards the house on the hill.
There it is, she will say.
You’ve been wondering about it.
The partial pillars.
The shutters.
The cloud cover.
The stifling whiteness of it all.
