First, Decide

First, you have to decide if it’s a littering
or a glittering. You have to decide if
it’s an indigo blue or a reflection of
you and those eyes they say change colour
sometimes. The blue is joyful and the green
is a deeper, more watery brightness.

Once you’ve established colour and mess, you
need to decide if you’ve fallen into a ravine and you’re
looking up at the infinite possibilities of the universe,
or if you’re standing at the riverbank looking down,
and the stars aren’t stars but silverfish,
slivers of moon reflected in ripples.

You have to decide whether you are lying face up in a gorge,
adoring the sky, or teetering on the brink of something,
a little too high for your liking, or if you’re ready to jump.
Are you trying to fall or fly? First you have to decide where you are.

First you have to decide who you want to be – a swimmer
or an astronaut, a diver or a pilot. Do you have a submarine
or a jetpack? First you have to decide whether you
are aiming to grab hold of stars that died long ago
or fish that will slither out of your grasp.

First you have to feel confused. First you have to
forget yourself. First you have to forget where
you are. First you have to decide whether you
want to grab stars that will slither out of your hands
or constellations of fish that have already
burned to blackened shards. First you have to decide

First, Decide

whether you want to explore the stars in the river
or the algae in the sky. First you have to decide
whether you want to dive into the air or fly into
the water. First you have to decide whether you are
teetering on the brink of the sky or flat on your back
on the riverbed. First you have to decide where bed is.
Which way is night. Which way is up. Which way
you’ve come from. Determine the direction of
the skybank, the riverspace. What is water
and what is air? Where can you breathe?
Are you even breathing now?

First you need to decide if you’re a fish or a bird,
where you belong – in the littering or the glittering,
if you’re in orbit or you’ve already fallen. Don’t
we all fall? First you need to decide whether you
have even flown, and if you ever will.

At least you don’t need to decide whether
it is dark or light. You can see that it is dark
here in the gorge, here in the sky, here
at the riverbank, here between the blue
and the blue, the cold and the freezing,
the free-falling and the submerging,
the littering and the glittering.