Cranesong
So it turns out
falling stars aren’t suns gone dark
but rocks on fire, an alchemy of dust
meeting sky
and only appear to fall
by streaking toward or slipping away
to cross some threshold, a veil hidden
until just that moment
the way cranes lift
their slender, dense bodies
from marshy ice pools
to meet a thin spring sunlight
where their rattle-bone songs
begin to spark and crackle, shooting
across sky
like smoke
from a fire, hidden
until just that moment
when sky
and dust become kin.
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