Speaking From Afar

Perhaps only after taking a glance backward is it possible to pause for breath as I start speaking from afar, until the speaking takes me far, for what has been uttered is never the end but follows along the edge of a mourning dove’s wing striving not only upward but sideways, through and beyond the distance that drives her intentions so easily apart.

Maybe as my words are nothing more than stiff elbows protruding from the smallest softest chamber of my heart, even as so many excuses to not write them flutter their wings, a single sentence becomes the very compass that gives direction to my quest as I drift to the surface of this sandy trail so easily dissolved into broken thoughts and the hills around my house open out onto pencil sketches of early daffodils brightening the careful call of a lonely dove that slows the warming of this cold morning down.