Losing anchor

The ash tree
holds the sky,
chewing chunks of blue
between its boughs.  But beyond
the sky is full again
and stoops towards the tree
to hold its branches.

And where am I?
Why do I sometimes slip
from the sloping wheel of blue,
float from the fast ground
that has thrown lose my anchor
so I drift at the mercy
of its currents?  What bits of blue
do I hold, what ground
grinds soil into my soul, what pigment
steeps in the breath of my escape?

If I bed my body down
into the vigour of the leaves,
if I hang my thread
on the growing seeds, on the careless, deadened
weeds that still have beauty in their brown,
if I suck in the fallen sky that fills
the space under my feet
will I find roots, will I latch and catch the turning
earth to my side until I feel the tread
of the horizon?

Can I spin
the wool-filled pool of loss onto a spool
that stretches through the paused present
into a landscape that waves
with welcome?