I sit on the curved back bone of earth
inside a scoop of wind-sculpted sandstone,
earth stretching before me to the horizon’s far edge
in an uninterrupted plane of quiet.
No sound ruffles the air.
No background freeway whirr pushes through the calm.
No bird cry or voice calls for attention.
Stillness saturates the enormous sky
in a hush so soft an insect’s step
might be heard, or the tick of sand
as it slips across a dune.
Above, the cosmos unfolds
into the bluest blue.
Far in the distance, a river
curls its slow arm around red earth.
Silence permeates the land, gentle
yet solid enough to last a thousand years.
My presence here is a grain of sand
resting on an ancient dune.
No need to stand, go somewhere,
move or prove anything.
Maybe the reason for existence
is simply to witness
the wonder of presence.
—
Anna Citrino’s poems have been published in Canary, Juniper, Lips, Main Street Rag, the Paterson Literary Review, and Still Point Arts Quarterly among other journals and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade, and To Find a River, and two books, A Space Between, and Buoyant. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Citrino lives in Sonoma County, California where she’s learning to draw. Read more of her writing at annacitrino.com
