As all the ballast of familiar life

Floated away from the hot air balloon

That was taking me in far-travelling mood

Over vast still mountains once glimpsed in dreams

I felt my foolishness in the domain

Of the air like a kind of punctuation

Applied to a page before a word's written

By that great Friend who, scattered everywhere

In the universe, seems to piece together

The floorplans of the endarkened rooms

Of this great city by negative design

Until the shapes before my eyes became

Obscure as all those lost relationships,

As all the ballast of familiar life