I like it when the thicket and the trees grow over,
my neighbors hidden from view as I from them

It’s cozy in my private garden,
greener somehow, more lush

Above me my patch of sky
as sure as that below is ground

I easily conceive of heaven here
alone behind these secluding privets

A very specific timelessness

Blessed is the rare glimpse of my neighbor’s light
or the sound of her voice soft from behind the overgrowth

A stone’s throw away
as the crow flies

To find me I lose me, I gather up
to pick up the strewn-about pieces

At night when I peer up
I am privy to all constellations

Once I named one
after you

If I were to fall endlessly in space on my back
I would perish with a forever expanding view
of receding patterns of star fields

before me

a panoply
of eternal burning objects

overhead

Chagall 2020