When you walk on a rocky path
or a trail strewn with branches and leaves,
when you ride a bike down the lake
through stoic trees and garrulous geese,
when you play songs on a piano
in the dark
or with your eyes completely closed,
when you navigate a balance beam
or do a back flip
landing on your toes
you are guided by senses
that position your body in space,
allow your brain
to tell your limbs and digits
where to go─
proprioception.
All creatures have it
in some version.
Here is a question:
how can we retain
balance,
what does it mean
in a world so all out of joint,
so chaotically spinning on its axis,
so undone
by the fascist spawn
of a disastrous, outdated system
to the point
where species who have migrated
back to the same place
at the same time
year after year,
generation after generation
are losing
their nature-given sense of direction
through climate change and other disruptions,
arriving too early
or too late.