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The Moment We Get There

We just have to want to and to think hard about it and then we can lift
over the wheat fields and fuzzy orange cattle, one of us always faster
than the others, one of us still on the ground or beyond the fences, catching
up later. Flying is like seeing ourselves from inside someone else but
getting to keep our own bodies. The last time we land, it is in a field
of goats and plane trees, in fall. A nun walks towards us
and we are scared: We think she will scold us for trespassing

on convent property, but when she gets close, she stops short

and looks us over, surprised. My, she says, bending down, as if
to someone she knows will not answer, what strong facial features
you have. I guess this is because—now it is clear—we are crows,
though it is hard to say whether we have always been crows or only
in this moment have become them to the nun, and equally hard to say
whether we really come from far away or have always been here.
And there is no one to ask if we are still in the places we left behind.