Life under the sky,
with its starched blues,
its plank-bottomed grays,
its vanishing birds,
the light running low
and the air running cold
over the ridge and into his ears,
the alto wind in bare woods,
the baritone jets connecting great cities,
all those familiar strangers
inside the empty house
waiting in the downloaded dark
to be juiced into presence,
all those agile minds
shoulder-to-shoulder on shelves
waiting to be read,
is still life alone.
