Stain-glass Eyes

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations,   if you live near one .   J.R.R. Tolkien. I walked across University of Michigan campus last evening to hear a key-note speaker invited to speak for Transgender Awareness Week. The building I walked into was engineered for comfort, privacy spaces, spaces for community and the entrance didn’t even feel like an entrance. The Social Studies building was warm to the eye. The stairs and hallways were mostly hidden from view instead of being the trunk to a tree. I set my backpack down on a narrow table with thick plexiglass covering the top and started to look for the small note I wrote myself with the room number of this lecture. Two young, white women came up to me smiling, asking me if I knew where the Spectrum Center was.   I told them,   “I’m headed there too and I have the room written down, I’m looking for it right now.” They giggled and one of them said,”We’ll wander around. We’ll find it.”  

I watch your travels.   Elegant    White         Light             Snowflake. From the sky of clouds, you fall. Fall on my tree, please. Fall where I can ask you where you’ve been. Fall were I can see you lightly fill the leafless branches. Only a window to separate us. I’ve watched all your comrades fall with you. Wind-catching lightness leads many of them. The wall by my window   prevents careless wind   Which won’t alter your fall.   There you are! You light on the one dead leaf of my tree. How agile you must be to consider this feat. Where did you come from? What path did you take to touch down on this One leaf     One tree,          One level   so my eyes can savor you delicateness? Why do your friends choose a gustier path? Don’t they need rest? Don’t they care to share their beauty they radiate? Or has it been decided for them? They’ve moved on so quickly, Propelled by forces you were not. Their missio