after Cloud Atlas
…on a different galaxy, underneath
the veil of a different sky, a marathon
of rotating moons, a daybreak swatch
of suns, colors spanning from blood
orange to lime green, but familiarities
are not lost to you even in this new life.
The deserts of roaming snarlax remind
you of the cattle drives in your first life
as a cowhand working in the open Montana
range, the soft wind rustling between your
hair, riding horseback in the spirit of flock
and pasture. You still catch the breeze here
like a firefly of feelings, hoping you can
encase this memory in a mason jar of
consciousness, but it fleets with every
old life gave and every new life made.
Your favorite lonely shore is the
black tar sand and naturally olive
green waters, here on Ethonia: The
Planet of Black Lagoons, it reminds you
of a film with partly the same name
the same lover you seem to run into
in every new life. The same one who
ran barefoot through the lakefront
silt and pebble, to let you know
you’re not alone. Whether she was a
98-year-old teahouse proprietor
& you, a 100-year-old sherpa in Nepal
Whether she was a Mother Swan
& you a dashing drake in a Scottish loch
Whether she was a tentacle-lipped Terrangian
& you a tentacle-eared Kerrchangian on
the underwater exoplanet: Xelophant
in your most recent life, you were
stockers at a supply house on a colony
in Mars, and now in this new life
as you gather your snarlax, herd them
into a corral of laser-lined karaguey steel,
you can see her in the distance calling you
by a different name, from a different voice
adorning a different face, but you know who
she is, she knows who you are, and that’s all
you both need to know for the sky to transform
into a mistletoe veneer, for a routine afternoon
to be a holiday, and for you to kiss beneath
the heavens of a brand-new world
POETRY FESTIVAL. Submit to site for FREE. Submit for actor performance. Submit poem to be made into film. 