From an aerial view, we look like dots on the landscape.
Even the trees have more presence than we.
Even the coastline and the sea. Are we our building
and our marks on the land, which endures?
The greenery is more expansive than our concrete.
The ocean is more impinging than our constructed waterways.
I have few thoughts that aren’t pushed out to sea or swallowed
with the new currents. I have no
borders that haven’t already been made
by a mountain’s curves or a forest’s abutment.
Dear America, I caught you lounging
on the Fourth of July. I caught you
dodging a thunderstorm. If I remain
in your water-soaked terrain,
will I sprout leaves? Will I sway
in the breeze as majestically as
that oak or elm? Will my remains
restore the landscape to what it was
before? Or have we fooled ourselves
into thinking someone sees us, distinguishes
us from way up there? Will you take a photo,
or a video and live stream it? I hear a plane
in the distance. Why do I marvel at that banner
that comes announcing in the water-color sky?
—
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the Seventh Annual Gival Press Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals internationally, including About Place Journal, Cimarron Review, The Massachusetts Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments. www.donnajgelagotislee.com
