Like satisfaction unfurling on
an August day, I watch two kites
hover over a just-harvested
corn-field—marking stray hoppers
and voles, while late morning thermals
massage away the haze, and driving
north on I-5, glance east and west
to see both Sierra Foothills
and Coastal Range, gilded in late
summer grass, with a scatter of
grey-green live oaks—the Sacramento
Valley resembling nothing so much
as a giant taco—cilantro
strewn randomly on the edges
of these tortilla mountains—the kites
now just flapping wings suspended
in mid-air—reflected in my left
side mirror, shrinking, until they’re
just periods typed on a page
of sky, and my brow furrows as I
wonder whether all my deeds
and intentions dispersed into
the universe have shifted this
disheartened planet even a
millimeter—back towards its proper
orbit.
This poem first appeared in Rust and Moth (2022).
—
Gary Grossman is Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia, and an author of 150+ scientific articles that have been cited over 9800 times. His work appears in 60+ literary reviews and has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize. Gary’s poetry books, Lyrical Years (Kelsay Press, 2023), What I Meant to Say Was (Impspired Press, 2023) and the graphic memoir My Life in Fish (2023) are available from Amazon.
