ON DETACHMENT

This is what it feels like
standing here and looking there:

A rough sketch of land
looking out across the water;
The emptiness of water
dissolving into shapeless gray;
Gray, the unmarked paper
taking up almost the entire sky.

We try to explain what this is
to people who cannot understand it,
people unable to find out for themselves
what was written on it.

Words, I have asked for many –
What can you say of stars,
the vast collection of them?
What can you say of eye and heart?
How to explain the wide expanse of darkness you go into
before you start to notice?
First, there is nothing;
and then, there is everything.


Words and image by Sarah Rehfeldt. Please do not copy without my permission.

Poem published in River Poets Journal 2018 Seasonal Issue, vol. 12, issue 2;
Poem with image in Dark Matter Journal, issue 3 (Summer 2013);
Merit Award for "Lost Words," Northwind Art, a juried exhibit of art and poetry, Port Townsend, WA (2021).