i wake up pre-dawn
and light a candle

the wind, pristine and strong,
whistling cold through an opened window
my preferred lullaby for a few hours more

i wake again,
this time, my home revolving into the
ancient light

and to familiar jurassic sounds
vocalizations of sandhill cranes

my bed is warmed by vintage wool and living fur
/ like my ancestors, sort of /

these voices demand
my reverence and i rise just for them
dozens passing in flight, then dozens and dozens more
north, north, north,

hear us! see us!

we migrate!

uninhibited by razor wire, mirrored highrises,
jet flightpaths or border walls, right here, right now in the sky

nascent clouds, and cranes of feather and flesh /not steel and cables/

so vulnerable once condensed — precipitating or landing

plasticized, polluted or starved

like us, like them, like Earth

yet

in my oval of morning sky

only clouds and cranes exist

not mortars and drones
not airdrops of bombs
or futile MREs

when will we again
become human

as this rural sky cradling the infancy of clouds, encouraging the flight of cranes