By Kimberly Blaeser ’90 Ph.D.

You wake
tiny in the panorama.
in the ancient curves of earth:
grey arch and steeple of stone, green tango
swoop of valley, spires of redwoods,
these postcard layers—
holy endlessness.

Paint with plaintive voice,
a prayer,
a hunger for sorting.
The strata, this knowing:
like papery reeds rising
over the aqua unreality of lake water
over shore bugs
over shale and flint
(over bedrock, sandstone, and dolomite).

A science of taxonomy.

But this unnamed, unnameable—
brim of the before and after.

Life bodies a mere vibration.

Song of crane
over cattail
over and over green;

and solid earth spilling itself
into blue,
river horizon
becoming sky.

Each patchwork tier the color of transience.

Who can number the arched back of shadows
dancing on hills,
spell the motion of glaciers
the changeling forms of land masses?

Simply rise now
in your small yearning.

Face the ancient wash
of copper light
of dawn or dusk,
this blessed flame ageless.
Know the hot lick of shifting colors—
the gentle burn of beauty.

A mind that lifts
song to this lode.

A word tether of seamlessness.

A yearning to sleep within.

This poem is published with the author’s permission. Kimberly Blaeser is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and was poet laureate of Wisconsin in 2015-16. See more of her work here.