Margaret Anne Kean

SHIFTING GROUND
after “What Is Left” by Romana Iorga

What is the word
for trying to find footing
when the world spins
without consulting you?

You call it teetering, an imbalance.

But it is a loneliness.
Depending on the day,
its colors can seem ordinary grayscale.
You may call it dull.

But in truth, it is a panoply,
a rainbow caught within isolation,
as if seen through a glass window
covered with waterdrops.

Water drops like ghost-fingers
up and down the spine.
You call it soothing.
But it is energy

released slowly, a controlled flowing
that connects like waves
that rumble through roots
of the things we call trees.

Let’s lie within their dirt,
place our fingers against their root balls,
let our bodies be an extension
of their communion.

prev
next