Calling All Copters

My history floods old streets
--my brain an older part of town--
until I need a boat to get around.
And there's a sound
that once was rumor,
now real as a waterfall
roaring out in hunger
as if it smells me.

Yet, what I fear most
is a clear day,
the kind of hard desert noon
that hunts all moisture,
zaps it and evaporates it,
until the world is stopped,
and my city's drifted off.
What's left is beyond
our little bricks of words,
and nothing can be built.
Empty...extravagant...possibility.
No houses, no avenues, no asphalt.
Scared to find life was spent
standing on the rock long sought:
the philosopher’s stone,
and I just lacked the guts
for anything but
construction.

Yes, we’re dying.
Yes, our skin falls to the floor,
weathered at the same pace
as a backyard fence.
Yes, we’ll be no more.
But worse is the sacred Now,
the moment we could choose
the loneliness and wonder
of being transformed,
our only rescue from this rooftop.

Calling all copters:
When the clock's straight up,
this house is gone.