News Poem

For this poem I drew inspiration from National Geographic - Jimmy's mom got us a subscription last Christmas and it has been a monthly source of wonder.

Telescope

I want to talk about peripheries:

how we define ourselves by what surrounds us –

and what we keep at bay.

I was reading about the North,

about Scandinavia, up close to the Arctic.

There are people there, called Sami –

at the edge of all things, just before unending white.

They herd the reindeer, sing to them,

move with the living, beating, tide of fur and hoof

across imagined borders, inked and named

in far off, warmer places, where the lines are drawn.

I saw a picture, once, of galaxies colliding –

an image of the past so distant,

the mind recoils from the knowing.

Four arms encircled, spiraled tighter, and there,

became a Rose.

These stories are not connected.

Or, if they are, it is only from the outside,

looking in.