From January 2 Monday

Which is the whole point, the still point
You watch the curving world vanish
Behind the weather, you watch
The slightly curved world you do not own
Nor can ever
vanish behind the weather,
your privilege to witness empty space,
the proportion between the space
and the world beneath it
compressed into a gentle curve,
a blink of lights,
the silent vehicles beads of an abacus,
farms that don’t seem to grow things anymore.

++++
Earn the view shouted the descending bicyclist
Who passed me while I peddled upward.
As the dog barked at anything that kept moving
His owner said, you don’t own the world boy,
As I was about to begin my mountain bike ride.

I am a term between these statements.
A ride uphill is work, the wages are the view.
The view is an empty sky, the world beneath it
Shrinking. The harder I pedal, the higher I go.
What else does all this work buy me?

Because I do not own the world I see
I must work for the things inside it
As they vanish beneath the weather,
A gentle curve.

No doubt behind that curve
Arrives a boat to harbor,
No doubt a vehicle, abacus-bead
Homes to its destination.
I have earned the right
Not to observe closely.

Earn the view! The downhill peddler said
As the bicycle beneath me became heavier
Until all thought about the view was out of mind.

At the foot of the hill, her hound barked madly
At whatever moved, until she told her dog
At whatever moved, until she told him,
Hand gripping leash, you do not own the world.

You have earned what is out of range
No doubt you’d earn at equal price.