Blue domes

I spent my youth under vast blue domes

the cerulean so heavy it was suffocating

lying down it felt like a lid sealing shut.

Trees whispered cryptic, leaf-and-sun songs

power lines seesawing across the car’s window

also sang when the mistral blew the laundry dry.

And the hawks, the hawks,

flickering through the clouds

their cry pinning souls in the heat.

Blond locks of hair turned crimson in the dusk

the fateful petrichor in the black autan, pungent,

time was as unending and volatile as space.

Such expanse overpowered every sense

lightning-jolted the heart to the origin

like those summer storms I loved so much.

And the hawks, always watchful, on the prowl,

scourge of the infinite, parched fields 

when the driest acorns pulverised underfoot.

In the warm embrace of the night I sank 

built the cities and lands in which I grew

stillness sought in motion to gain peace.

The day, sunlit tiles framed by a window,

crystallizing specks of dust in sunshafts

church bells unringing the flock to work.

I spent my youth under vast blue domes

pretending I was an unfettered hawk

against an immense, blueing eye 

Right above the surface of the sun 

disaware of pain, despair and joy

floating, floating, floating in a blue dome.