Sightlines
We’ll have to shear off the tops of those trees
if they continue to block my view
of the mountain. Not only our trees
but the neighbors’ as well. Find some
daredevil to fly a helicopter upside
down over the neighborhood
and give it a good haircut.
It’s America, people will do anything.
And my sightline is sacrosanct.
I need to see that peak floating
like Fuji, not just know it’s there.
So I can orient my immaterial
longings, my desire to transcend
earthly limitations. I can’t be
expected to pray to something
half obscured by these lesser gods
etching themselves into the evening air,
performing their fantastic
collaborations with the wind, keeping
or dropping their needles or leaves,
subject as they are to time and change.
What can they teach me about how to be?
–John Brehm, from No Day at the Beach.