THE JOURNALIST...........................................................................................................................................ANN E. MICHAEL

The Journalist

Poem by Ann E. Michael

What is it you observe? Maybe traffic because you are in your car so often it’s an extension of self, a familiar surround, while you keep an eye on the blue Subaru creeping up on your right and you know the light will change at about the time that rental truck reaches it, so you move into the left lane. But what do you notice, beyond what must be noticed? Do you register a wedge of geese struggling against headwinds or a paper wasp nest in a poplar’s bare bough? What about those small events in the cosmos beneath notice? You notice them. Not on the screens which scream look look but through your eyes: plastic bag, empty, pirouettes across a lawn, and you don’t know who lives in that house but likely they have children—swing, slide, tricycles. And here, streets littered with walnuts, the black walnuts of your childhood, so that now what you observe is yourself in recall mode and thinking of a winter many years ago, the only time in your life you ever saw a snowy owl in the wild— the shock of admiration that pushed outward from your chest cavity, outward and into the wholly brilliant world where you walked, trying not to twist an ankle, on the bitter shells of walnuts.

Ann E. Michael resides in PA's Lehigh Valley. Her previous books include Water-Rites and The Capable Heart. Her forthcoming chapbook, Barefoot Girls, will appear early in 2020 from Prolific Press. Website & blog: www.annemichael.wordpress.com

PHILADELPHIA CITY HALL DETAIL XVII BY JOHN A. BENIGNO