Jenny Ward Angyal

Earthbound

A little hop and I’m airborne, arms outstretched, hovering under the arching limbs of the elm. The tip of my father’s cigarette glows among winking fireflies. No one knows I’m there. Fragments of adult conversation drifted upward to mingle with the rustling of leaves.

Not since childhood have I flown on the wings of a dream. And yet . . .

surrounded
by a cloud of swallows
on the wing
I become invisible
        I become sky

The moment passes, the fog lifts, the circling birds are gone. The cry of a red-tailed hawk pulls me out of my reverie, but I can’t see where it is. Jet contrails weave across the blue. I couldn’t care less about missing the Virgin Galactic launch this morning.

space junk—
joy-rides for the wealthy
leaving
the world we have
a little hotter

Out of nowhere, one black speck appears, and then another, and another—circling turkey vultures, lazily riding the thermals on outstretched wings.

one sky
enfolds us all—
a cloak
of raveled dreams
tossed on a rising wind

On my morning walk ten days later, the sky is thick with haze and the smell of smoke hangs heavy in the air. Three thousand miles away, on the opposite side of the North American continent, the forests are burning.

south of someday
stenciled on a sign—
the arrow
points me homeward
to the earth beneath my feet

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About the Author

Jenny Ward Angyal’s tanka have appeared widely in journals and in her collection, moonlight on water  (2016). She is tanka editor of Under the Basho.