Poem with a Grand Title

Thank you;
the lump has left my eyelid
when we curve the sidewalk,
kick the rubble

of four tree groups toward the lake.
Can you see long
winter shadows?
See the sun

traverses other ground?
And the mountain
to your left, the one we’ll not
finish climbing?  

Brown mountain sun
on your arm hairs
when we
make it there.

Tree shadows are swaths
that cut the grass.
We’re black
too on the green stripes.  

We’re shadows
listening for birds.
You hear the boxes
waiting

to light the diamond
locked up straight.
Step
thinking of maps,

evidence,
glossopteris.  
Find Earth
on a globe

which is not Earth.
Spinning it’s
ineffective. I touch
and it says Stevenson.

Attack signal. Attack
the crosswalk signal.
I see you surface
dressed in brown,

you as a bush
walking in green
by the white frame goal.
I run to hand you

eucalyptus bark.
You tell me Touch it.
No, I say, admiring it
thrown around.

— Claire Becker (© 2008)


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