We’ve had to stop trying and we’ve had to go on.
The path seemed only soft stems, then a landscape—
spacious, partly vandalized. Birds paddled in
with their voluptuous chanting, slashing
our impudent truths. We were moving along
a ridge. Tender, the sun began to embroider
the meager shrubs which were not flaming with petals.
They seemed to have fallen asleep, nodded off
in the fields but hadn’t lain down. A chubby trail
propelled us through the final damp thought
of autumn. Into a quest without speaking
ugly world tensions. No need, after all,
the path sauntered with its geographies
and stony slopes. At one hurried curve,
horses swelled by, faces lined to the prow.
Clop and clop, their purpose; we slid
to the side. The sky in an hour would be
descending in a watermelon lace, quickly wrapping
to a matter of recess, each mountain devouring
the next. Then we’d squint through binoculars at planets.
A quick tilt would show us a halo, a future, a silvery pulse.
Imagine that: whatever we see we can call evidence.
This poem first appeared in Worn Smooth between Devourings (NYQ Books, 2023).
—
Lauren Camp serves as New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024). An Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park, Camp received the Dorset Prize, finalist commendations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com
