--I WISH I COULD FLY, FAR, FAR WAY FROM HERE

…It’s Monday and everything is gray—the sky, the lake waves, my shirt, the trees, the wind, my breath, the three ducks bobbing on the surface of the water, one of the eagle’s feathers floating by my window, the spider web strung across the glass.  Someone has stolen all the color, painting the world with a wide brush, muddy strokes of gray everywhere.   The sun wants to be a different shade, of course it does, but it’s burdened by the weight of the atmosphere which has betrayed it after all these centuries.  Sky the color of cinders, ash, prairie dirt, tree bark, wolf fur.  Below the lake laps, one gray wave muscling the next, on its way west, nothing to stop it, a victorious bully, no one to prevent the aggression.  Yesterday a man in a scuba suit stood atop a surf board paddling but today he’s gone and there’s not another soul around anywhere and if I listen carefully I can hear myself breathing, hear myself thinking, though my thoughts are as murky as the water, just as loose and unscripted.  I imagine a beach in Mexico but the beach and ocean are all gray.  I picture Paris, but a fire has burned the city to charcoal rubble and all the tourists there sift through the ruins for a keepsake, mumbling to themselves, wanting a refund for their effort.  In the distance a little girl in a yellow jumper walks down the street.  Everyone stares at her, notices her wavy blonde hair and dimples, her pool blue eyes, how happy she appears, as she’s completely as if she’s completely unaware of the gray world she’s surrounded by.  Awestruck crowds gather around her, asking where she came from, wanting to touch her yellow dress but afraid to.  Finally she opens her mouth and yawns.  Then she burps and giggles.  She snaps her chubby little girl fingers, skipping down the road, singing, “Follow me to the blue.  Follow me to the blue.”