That sacred summer

I watched an osprey dive feet first

wings spread like benediction

when it rose with a silver, fluttering trout.

That trout, oh! That trout plucked from

the dense tug of water

into the effortless current of air.

Gasping with astonished breaths

that rash unknown sunlight

only now obscured by nothing, nothing.

Shuddering lips

tasting that sharp bite of

sage and pine, of star particles and  meteor dust.

Mouthing what! What?

That abrubt death and

that equally abrupt rebirth.

I’m asking you, have you felt it? I know

I have.

That moment when razored talons grab you by the neck

rip you out of the sweet spiraled current of

your one native life

into an alien other.

What!

What?

I’ve been a trout

Have you?

Gulping and amazed at fire light and

the unsound emptiness of air

offering no rampart nor shore

When death comes as Winter

a dream dashed

A love lost

An unwarranted “no.”

A life upended.

I think it will be like that, too

at the very end.

That astonishment that

sense of angry

and betrayed wonder.

Can you become a silver trout

with sudden, unexpected wings

gulping unheralded star dust

shouting Hallejulia! with your

rounded lips

when you are called to soar?

How outrageously new are

you willing to be?