you can catch me

you can catch me when I land

you've shaken me into the air again and again
sometimes knowing well I'm like the pigeon
never flying far, following, always looking to return;
and then at times
when the clean sky calls me and the bounds of earth
appall me, I am something else,
launched from your wrist, and maybe waiting on
or maybe gone --
and I feel you hoping to me far below.

but that's because you stand

leaving the rectory

Closing the rectory door to find
rain again had come and gone,
though everything else was just as I'd left it --
the narrow path of pavers, damply darkened
and the droplets on the seat
of the bicycle, where I'd left it locked
against the rusted clothesline pole.

In the twilight breath of fully opened
earth, of the blades of grass on the tiny lawn,
cool air lapping into my eyes,
and everything still, as before.

Though I sat an hour before the picture window,
I never saw the fall.
As if I'd turned to catch some droll remark
of the father's, only to miss
the hushed passing of the shower,
like a curtain pulled aside, or the train
of the bride,
or the moment of sleep --
Something passed over --

and left us again.

I wipe the bike seat and the handlebars
with a sleeve, consider the nearby lilies
and the hand-lettered sign on the door,
and wonder without knowing why.