Tuesday clouds this hectic splatter, distortsthe calendar’s faith in progression, its suspicionof narrative. There’s just this one next thingplunked down, weighty & here, after the lastnext thing burned off in mist. I say your nameout loud in the blue, in a field of fields,in my own voice. I kept going. I teach myselfto control the forward fall. I stunning beautyin the face of this unraveling. Sometimesthere’s a breath in the trees that crowd the lakeshore& sometimes there’s a break in the meI’ve sketched on the surface of the churningwaters & sunlight pours through the canopy,those brittle leaves not blocking the exploding light.Sometimes writing this poem means I’m losingthe other. I file a letter of acceptance. I evisceratethe memory. I stumbling leaf freefall in NovemberSyracuse cold. Before clouds, a sun & from that sunthe dawn spilled everywhere & my backyardcould not contain it just as I could not containmy backyard just as I could not contain that bird& that bird could not contain me becauseI would crush that bird if I could, pluck itright out of the sky’s big azure eye & squeezeuntil it was nothing but history in my hands,all that frazzled flight blown off, a note referring meback to the before that moment when I saw somethinghere beneath low-flying that was so much not me I reachedout & held. Before Tuesday, Monday & before Mondaya whole recitation of disappeared ephemera gone as Ioutlived it. I lived it & I lived it & I lived it up.Sometimes where do we find ourselves isn’ta question so much as it is a heart lifted highinto the haze above our heads, as in look at this& you tell me where I am & do you knowwhere I should be. Tuesday so this is my timeto blow up like a fist while the sunlight holdsback & casts judgment like shadows on scene.All day I’ve been watching these trees, waitingfor their arms to fall & all day I’m in aweof their dumb persistence – so sure that ifthey hold something up high enough, long enough,it will be noticed. Sometimes I drop brightnessfrom my branches & can only watch the fall& can only pretend there’s an answer to get.Sometimes I wooden trunk uprooted.____Nate Pritts is the author of three full-length books of poems -- The Wonderfull Yeare (Cooper Dillon Books, 2010), Honorary Astronaut (Ghost Road Press, 2008) & Sensational Spectacular (BlazeVOX, 2007). Nate teaches gifted students online through Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth. The founder & principal editor of H_NGM_N, find him online at http://www.natepritts.com