Do Fish Notice Water?

Along each scaled flank a line lights up
with every shift of pressure, stir of current
sending lightning-dot warnings to the brain
above the flaring gills. Fish turn away
from danger, toward food, obedient
to flecks of tissue reading faint odors
and mini-voltages.

Hawks climb thermals as if they were ladders:
each layer of air, invisible step
wedged under a stiff fan of feathers. Birds have
no word for air, a thousand words
for the textures of air, the tiny turbulences
that drag at the edges of slicing wings.

Deep in some canyon lined with travertine and piñons--
or steel, glass and concrete, wires humming above--
immersed in God, feel your soul's feathers flex
watch your lateral line
for a flash.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside