Crawling down plastic drapes, 
Longing for that stark white sky 
  locked behind the imponderable mystery of "glass",
My pumpkin-colored ladybug companion
  in these four walls of corporate-rate stucco and polyester
Explores her options

While I explore mine.

Across a laptop-laden desk,
  strewn with papers and stuffed scraps of
    I-can't-forget-that, or
    just-in-case;
Jigsaw pieces of a life
Longing for that stark clarity of purpose
  locked behind a morning as mundane
    as these plastic drapes.

How different, then, are we?

But I can
Reach for the latch
  in a small act of kindness
  or petty deus ex machina indulgence
And usher her
  out, into the wet cool morning

She can not understand what has brought her salvation
  or even, perhaps, that she is now free
But she must know that something has changed

And I at the window,
  standing to watch her tumble from our glassy perch,
  flutter, swerve, spiral,
  to the manicured not-quite-woods below

I also feel the change

My breath takes in morning-filled air
  as if for the first time,
Giving back evanescent wisps,
  carried, by the leaf-rustling breeze
  into that sky she still seeks 

And I wonder: am I now free?

[19 Nov 2008 – Yet another nature-meets-civilization poem; hmmm, I may be on a theme! From the desk of the La Quinta Inn I was staying at in Kirkland, WA, during my business trip up there last week. Boy, do I love the northwest!]