Reverie in Open Air

I acknowledge my status as a stranger:

Inappropriate clothes, odd habits

Out of sync with wasp and wren.

I admit I don’t know how

To sit still or move without purpose.

I prefer books to moonlight, statuary to trees.

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,

So I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.

Who claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?

My feet are the primitives here.

As for the rest—ah, the air now

Is a tonic of absence, bearing nothing

But news of a breeze.

Copyright Credit: Rita Dove, "Reverie in Open Air" from American Smooth. Copyright © 2004 by Rita Dove. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..

Source: Poetry (March 2003)