by Debra Galloway
There is a place for sky inside.
I search for it but am caught,
in this tangled collision
of buildings, angled rusty bridges,
fast roads strapped onto other roads.
Is it gone now, too far buried?
It seems the heavens fell,
all light distant, consumed.
Yet somewhere
there is still air and gracious space
for watching clouds,
for standing on hills that reach to blue,
for pausing to smell the green,
nose up like a young farm dog.
Here is a place to roll like an old horse
who has found his home on the rough grass,
breath and body strong and loud.
So, I too stop to breathe and consider,
where is my place on this earth?
When it is found, all thoughts will fall away,
at peace with fencerow birds and quick grey squirrels.
I will linger to witness purple clouds meeting
dark evening ground.
My heart will stop for this beauty unbidden,
that will return me yet again into the blessed now.
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Debra Galloway lives in Cincinnati with her partner Richard and two great dogs. She is a former public school art teacher who now works with Child Protective Services as a mediator: a lover of farms and fields transplanted to the city. As a visual artist, she has shown her work in juried shows and spent several years working as a Kentucky Artist-in-Residence, but has been a poet-in-hiding for years. Recently, she jumped into a graduate poetry workshop at Northern Kentucky University and is learning to trust herself with words as much as paper and canvas. |
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