by Darci Walker
In poetry we find a place to land
In minute details we touch the trail of a slug
and brush the blushed feathers on a sparrow’s chest.
We feel the last breath as death exhales.
And inhale the warm lips of first love.
We hear the tinkling of the bell that opens to the dusty old bookstore
we see the ring of spilled milk on the floor.
In these details we find poetry.
But poetry fails to stay small.
It refuses to let a waffle simply be a waffle.
Poetry zooms out and finds a place to land.
bigger than the thing we touch.
bigger than the thing we feel.
bigger than the thing we think we know.
Poetry flies far away
into space and time and back again
And tells a bigger truth.
Poetry says I am We.
The We that reverberates like drum beats through silent nights.
The We that strings together like the limitless scales of the ocean waves
The We that has no beginning and no end.
the We that will always prevail.
My myopic brain wants to focus on details that bring me pain.
Details that I can not solve.
Details that sentence me to death.
Alone. lost in my tiny, insignificant details.
So poetry gives me what I think I want,
details. details. details.
But poetry refuses to stay small.
It zooms in to explode out
A big bang of connection.
A deep breath of understanding.
A universal truth that wraps me up and strokes my beating heart back to sleep.
