Over the Plains

The long, unhindered stretch
of an arm, any arm, mine.
The course an arm must make
to touch flesh. Reaching
is not enough; you must
allow your muscles to speak
of the eternity of lines.
There is a light, glimmering
through the fog on the end
of an airplane's wing. See
that it is electric and fleeting
at the same time, that as
the pilot turns on course
it sends out a calligraphy
called distance.
If you are on the ground
looking up, then I am
moving away from the place
where you stand. I am
winning the staring contest
the light and I are having
from Denver to Chicago,
calculating eternity, distance.
If my feet are in the dust
of a mountain's foothills,
if you are flying away from
the place where I stand
and reaching out toward
a flickering, untouchable light,
look down into the caldera
of your hand. There is
this smooth, paper-like
openness.

Touch me, then.

© Stephanie Walkenshaw

The World Continuing

To sit at the edge of water,
any body of water will do;
to focus on the percussive
clack of band-winged
grasshoppers playing acrobat
on the lit sides of moss and
lichen covered rocks; to watch
three mule deer does,
ears open and wide, eyes
and noses moist black,
stilled; is to imagine
the world continuing,
thinly, a line of web
tossed back and forth.
The act of living has little
to do with sorrow; the will
to blink overpowers
the will not to, regardless
of what is outside,
regardless of whether
or not the world will
be there when eyes are
again opened.

© Stephanie Walkenshaw