the frail, illegal fire balloons appear
we glimpse them, reddish, leaping up the cliffs
turning towards the sea
the air is so thin you can starve on it
you can see all the way to heaven
and Mother catechises me
one gas lamp burning near her shoulder
she glistens from cocoa butter smoothed
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares
she will never be stirred in her loamy cell
my eyes stare at the bottom of a river
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing
the dying of time in the white light of tomorrow
I learn not to fear infinity
Author's Notes/Comments:
this poem is made up of 14 lines from 14 different poems, some lines slightly altered to match the present tense of the poem
the poems, in order, are:
The Armadillo by Elizabeth Bishop
Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance by Elizabeth Bishop
17 Haiku for Solo Trombone by Ellen Lindquist
Heaven by Cathy Song
Heaven by Cathy Song
The Prodigal Son by Rudyard Kipling
I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee by Howard Menerov
Weathering Out by Rita Dove
Howl by Allen Ginsberg
I Found Her Out There by Thomas Hardy
The Far Field - III by Theodore Roethke
Cuttings by Theodore Roethke
The Far Field - II by Theodore Roethke
The Far Field - II by Theodore Roethke
Wow I didn't mean for the whole last stanza to be from one author. That was an accident. I'm sorry for any inaccuracies, I didn't write down the sources when I first got them.
