The sky becomes what is added to it–
      a radio tower, a stratus cloud, a fleet of Chinese kites–

until one day, a day like today when winds gust east, then
          west, blowing hard off the lake, 

the sky becomes what is taken away,  

      a vapor trail vanished.  The absence of geese.  A gaping
      space where before there was none.

Begin, again, the slow math of loss.  Use feathers, flint,
         whatever is around,

until the sky, once more, fills with that which is offered to it–

our love-cries, curses, kaddishes, our whispers, our howls,
      our longing, our singing, our long, long, keening.