Screen Savers

We who never see the skies,
Blinded to pink clouds
Trembling in their mountainous
Disguise, walled off
From snow-filled hills
Whose crests and meadows
Dot the valley’s shawl;
We whose crimes
And failures filter out
The trees with city grime
And doubt; those like all
Of us who delay the sun
And willows breaking through
The melting rime of spring
With placeholders
Made of ringtone ghosts
And prying iPhone faces;
We whose lives
Are shrouded from the winds
And seas by cubicles
And shades—
We bless the Pleiades
Nonetheless:
Maybe all these teams
Of falling stars that save
Our eyes from wild horizons
With waving scenes
Of photographer’s excess
Will later rise to dream
Behind their appalling plastic flesh
Like gods in the machines.

Tippet Alley, May Palace, Vail
March 10th, 2013