Sunfish Pond

No, I don’t turn into a hawk or
any other bird when I look up
at the sky, swimming on my
back in Sunfish Pond,

I only turn into myself,
the one I undressed on the shore
and let loose naked in the pond to swim

and pretend I was flying like the hawks
in the cool waves of the sky above…
 
thus I, too, can fly and what’s more
I can enjoy the freedom of flying, 
the freedom of the limitless sky, 

the freedom of a hawk
who can glide right through a
lightning bolt as my earthbound
body can through cigarette smoke

and the hawk can go on flying without
even ruffling a feather or moving a toe,
riding the wind with more ease                                                
and grace then a cloud…

No flying permitted!
Tack that to the wind and see
what hiking boots can do,
if I still find them on the shore…

yet freedom is wherever you demand it,
not only in the sky or the middle of a
forbidden pond or on an unmarked trail…

freedom for a worm is to crawl
for a fish to swim
for a bird to fly
for man to make believe he too
                      can soar into the sky…