From The Air
by Nevada Kerr

I remember when we could find words for her
The whole neighborhood knew her name
On Monday it was hope or expectation
By Friday it was disaffection
A forlorn bride with a loaded gun

She could wear love's shadow down
Swallow the sun between sighs
She responded to no name on Sunday's
Exchanging the breath of desire
For the silence of a quenched fire

I remember when we needed no religion to persuade her
She would appear in our dreams on time
At noon she wore the face of a straggler
By twilight she became a mother
The first and last without a cause

She dug out bowers with a hook
Yanked asteroids from the air
Cried an ocean between centuries
Unearthing the seeds of germ-war fear

I remember when we could call out for her
Without false echoes resounding
The tempests of Heaven spoke with her voice
At one world's end her words were small
At the birth of Hell on Earth
They over-shadowed mountains

She could promise you a life without death
But she wasn't very good at lying
She returns souls to their proper homes
Some are rented and some are owned
But by forever they are hers to loan

Written by Nevada Kerr
6th May 2001.
(Edited 8th October 2001).