where fireflies compete with solar systems
lighting up black holes—twinkling, twinkling
twinkling—giving us time to recline
on close-cut fields of barley & rye,
plan for the future, reminisce about the past,
understand creation’s feet touch down
momentarily—at best—in this place & time
while we bask in immediate heavenly sights
yet glance off into the distance, uncertain
the adjacent coastline’s really been lost in squalor
& if plans for escaping our youthful cradle
amount to rebellious journeys, haphazardly
driven by impulse, desire, aspiration--
wistful fancy incessantly longing for exception.