Beyond the Lines

There is this line I trace to work each morn,

tire-and-tear-streaked,

by rubber souls, well-worn -

This dotted line of trafficked cars and minds.

Halfway across this faded and redrawn line,

on a midtown Buffalo bridge,

Midway between a concrete thought

and an abstract sense

of something -

I see a proud-ish seabird, early

running on the wind

and silhouetted by bright living stage lights

of wind-shattered waters, and icy sky,

and I think I realize that

I too was made to fly.

*

I want to take new trains

of thought and of steel, beacon-like shining, both

which trace tracks through ochres and siennas

bleeding out across this woody autumn palette -

and wander with the steady will of a painter's brush

over and under across all the other lines.

Call it flowery, call it naive, call it foolish -

Put lines around and through it, categorize and limit -

Still I will be here yearning to live

In the cool, colorful, and dangerous air

beyond the lines.

*

Halfway across this faded and redrawn line,

on a midtown Buffalo bridge,

Midway between a concrete thought

and an abstract sense

of something -

the lines all lose their hardiness,

as in the middle of a moment,

I see this proud-ish seabird,

and I think I realize that

I too, was made to fly -

To fly

beyond the lines.