The hovering lightness knows a shortcut
through the tall wavering grass to a secret sea meadow,
a meadow that no one who enters
can leave. Those of us who reside here
daily suffer the sensation of balancing
on a tightrope between ocean and land.
Being neither here nor there, the lightness
concedes, is not optimal, but the alternative
is a relentless trek away from any possibility
of wonder into a greyness that revels
in the disappearance of the world. The lightness
is like Galileo’s insights,
flying unimpeded into the soul,
its pristine landscapes, its uncharted waters.
—
Jan Conn’s Peony Vertigo, her tenth book, was published by Brick Books, 2023. She is a member of the writing group Yoko’s Dogs whose latest book is Caution Tape (Collusion Books, 2021). As a biologist at The Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, she studies ecology and genetics of mosquitoes that transmit malaria parasites. Her visual art is represented by Lauren Clark Fine Art Gallery, in Great Barrington, MA, where she lives.
