rejectomorph | Reset Forty-Seven, Day Five

I slept the whole middle out of Saturday, maybe six or seven hours. Later had a sandwich and tried to sleep some more but couldn't. I seem to have missed most of the rain, as we've had mostly just sprinkles since I got up, and right now the night is silent, or a silent as the mini-metropolis ever gets. I have another stomach ache, and some headache as well. It's enough to keep me distracted and unable to concentrate for long. I might soon be able to sleep again. I certainly hope so. Being conscious has grown tedious.

Sunday Verse

27,000 Miles

by Albert Goldbarth

These two asleep . . . so indrawn and compact,
like lavish origami animals returned

to slips of paper once again; and then
the paper once again become a string

of pith, a secret that the plant hums to itself. . . .
You see?—so often we envy the grandiose, the way

those small toy things of Leonardo's want to be
the great, air-conquering and miles-eating

living wings
they're modeled on. And bird flight is

amazing; simultaneously strength,
escape, caprice: the Arctic tern completes

its trip of nearly 27,000 miles every year;
a swan will frighten bears away

by angry aerial display of flapping wingspan.
But it isn't all flight; they also

fold; and at night on the water or in the eaves
they package their bodies

into their bodies, smaller, and deeply
smaller yet: migrating a similar distance

in the opposite direction.