How Many Miles High
The corn stalks have perfected
the art of centurions, a patience
against the directives of a breeze,
keeping the distance between
tassels and silks incalculable in
miles but decipherable in time, as
we measure the separation of stars
and planets from our home, if we are
to reach them in times of earthly
catastrophe. In summer, grass yellows
on Mars; on Venus it obeys the heat.
From follicle to shaft, the stems of
these otherworldly plants track
the shortened path of the sun
in ellipses, like what the face
of an idol observes in its
adherents. How many millennia
does it take for a rock to become
sand, for sand to become a man,
for a man to become a monster
that patrols a fence around a
sanctuary? If we knew, then
perhaps we could say how we
might escape surveillance, from
the soaking rains above, the winds
that foul the prevailing westward pattern.
Perhaps, below, you will see me waving
like a grinning fool. Perhaps you will
wave back as I attempt to get closer
closer to the sky on trails and switchbacks.
Perhaps like me you once made an
assumption; that you might run away
and start on that new life, just beyond hills
and waters that encircle the present.
Somewhere there must be storage of
verifiable events, conversations,
contracts, arguments that live on in
Petri dishes where complications play
out in sterile environments, a depository
of your ardent declarations, about how
bright my face was but only
from a certain visage.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of five full-length collections of poetry; four chapbooks of poetry; a memoir; and two novels. Her most recent book of poems is The Exhaust of Dreams Adulterated (Broadstone Books). More poetry is forthcoming in Mom Egg Review and Milkweed Poetry Journal (not the famous one).
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