We walk the edge of impassable spaces
Daily, we approach the distances between—
between us and the world we walk through,
between cultures, between what we believe we look like
and what the camera shows
between what our dogs wish we knew
and what they can say,
between the awake and the dreamer, dreaming
We pick our stance, to confront, or study, ignore, admire—
Sometimes we surge forward, all power and confidence
setting out to cross to the other side
Other times we study maps, draw routes full of potential,
compile exhaustive lists of possibly critical supplies
Sometimes we are content to acknowledge the distances
as in the way we watch a sunset—
lovely, fleeting and unreachable
Today, I am the one writing about it in the dark
and the dog who tends me is on the porch,
undecided, hovering between barking at the night
or watching headlights and the wind
and the way moths try to fly through the screen
to reach the light inside
Puff Of Smoke Poems 