Lawrence.com

Landed

By Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Here everything is a list of its details:

the surface of crow feather where it bows,

or echo of whippoorwill through the closed window

over the bed. The chiggers and the slow-creeping

cedar trees, milkweed webbed with spit tlebug,

and the grass above and below ground,

mirroring out from a single point

of root and longing.

I'm landed here, in the center of something

not my own doing, and although I keep thinking

I'm alone, I'm dying, I'm afraid,

I'm making all that up.

The man I love is coming out of the woods,

the long crescent of his body closer, bowing to touch

something, say its name.

When he stands back up, he walks slowly to show me

whatever we think of love is just the aerial view

that tells you nothing compared to the soft green stems

that curl and fall with the wind, compared to how each step

across the grass is a form of falling

out of and into what losses make life possible.

The quick flashes, like the sun balancing

on the lip of the horizon right before

it goes out, like that moment the field golds

everything opaque, like how love strips us

out of the stories we have for love.

-- Poet's Showcase features work by area poets. Submit your poetry via e-mail with a subject line of Poet's Showcase to mpaget@ljworld.com or send typewritten (not handwritten) submissions to Mindie Paget, 645 N.H., Lawrence 66044, attn: Poet's Showcase. Teen writers should submit their work to the 18 & Under page at teens@ljworld.com.