Precision Poem by Trevor Maynard

It is as if, before I woke
A great hand reached across the sky
And lightly placed a stencil in the clouds

It pushed with uneven force
Creating a perfect curve at the top
Which reached maybe two hundred degrees
Each of sixty minutes, one of forty-five
Such precision for a messy sketch, but no

Without the architects' eye, the falling striations
Of white and grey that fall away at the base
Effuse joy, reveal the end of night
This morning moon is a September wonder
It is as if, before I woke
A new day invited me once again to breathe

Eighteen starlings: sweeps of charcoal against the blue
Momentarily paused before Earth's companion
Ancient dinosaur wings unruffled, unblinking eyes closed
They swayed, it seemed, back and forth as one
They darted like upward rain, dropped like unseasonal snow
Finding purchase and rest upon a concrete box
In which six hundred and five humans live
Soon to be six hundred and seven, when Luna has her twins
So precise, there is arithmetic in this world
If you look, and yet, are these lives to be so planned
Is my life, so deterministic, before I wake?

To the east, a morning blanket of flat grey
Is now breaking to rosettes and patches of white
The sun, a pale pox, seemingly weak
Warms from ninety-two point three million miles away
Tingling yellow and milky orange help break apart
Nimbus, cumulus, and the rest

And while I watch this, without sound
The birds disappear, the moon leaves the sky
The whole day pours across the sky in a random
Yet entirely precise, cyclorama of blue
Dabbed and dashed in watercolours of white