Blue

I have seen the autumn’s lush transparent sky
Extend the eye’s small earth-bound world to space
And seal in fleets of orange leaves that fly
Across the backdrop of its cobalt face,

Lending vaster motives to the simple facts of fall,
Infusing wheat and trees that flutter in its wind
With depths beyond the vision’s narrow wall,
An infinity where our finite hopes are pinned:

But when I see the horror that the air contains,
The sight a prisoner of the blinded mind of man,
Ruin falling through the perfect day like rains,
Devastation wrung from what in so much grace began,

I have to question what our eyes imbue
With what in fact is only so much blue.

Tippet Alley
October 4th, 2001
March 19th, 2002