High on a plump cloud she surveys
the red earth beneath her. There are little inlets
here & there, messages of irrigation, she notes
the sweeping river, the dots of farmhouses, the field borders &
she shakes her head
to shepherd away the dips of a friendly cloud.
Her wooden pencil, already discomposed with teeth marks,
scribbles sharp against the clipboard.

As she commands her balloon
so she commands her soul.
Upwards, she governs, upwards with warmth
until with her own firm hand the rope-pulled signal & a drop
back into depths.

But not yet.

Now she is free to dangle endlessly
secured in a basket of corded leather, &
with ease of clouds etched in the sky
she casts another tooth in the pencil wood.