Flies

The path of the Sun is a windshield wiper across the face of the mountain,

And they aren't big enough to show the pattern,

So we say they drop into shadow,

Or that the shadow rises to cover them.

But light isn't more than a collection of bugs on a windshield,

And night a brand new plastic arm scattering and splattering them

That the drivers might see where they can't during the day.

Valleys are for dark things,

And peaks for the isolated socialites

To escape their sundry sorrows,

Dream of wingèd canopies.

Of feathery ceilings below their high gaze.

I dream of wildfire,

Where one silvery head circles before,

Gazing into the water spared of the haze because the wind is kind,

And gently dodge the diving terror from above

That cannot see its sovereignty.

Not much left now; the bugs have scrambled back into the sky,

And soon I'll see them perched far away,

Making shapes in the black,

Waiting for the wiper to return its odd, swinging arc

That they might alight anew upon the mountainside,

Upon the meadows and rocks and trees,

Gather about the waters to eat us,

And we'll curse them, kill them,

Summon the winter darkness.

But for a time they'll stare at us unblinking,

And we'll call them ancient, memory,

And never invoke their insectile nature,

Nor confess our bifurcated tongues.