A view through coin-operated
binoculars, a squirming child

hoisted up onto a hip

Always the erasure of clouds
the pale birches blurred

into softening mountains

into an even softer sky

always, later, a sun
or moonrise

Always a river whispering
to streams, to streamlets—

to ascend as

a suspension of rain

Always a migration of hawks
riding a rising tide of air

as if called by

the child
with outstretched arms

with quarters in her fist