ABSTRACT

This is how it’s done:
You lay down some color
a certain thickness
on the earth.
You trace it back
all the way
to the far edge of the horizon
with your eyes,
never stopping –
everything spilling out ahead of you
into what can only be
the perfect amount of light –
and wait here.
The way the wind will whisper over,
cloud-swirled and violet,
the shape of moon
or hint of blue
revealed inside its pebbled grayness –
you will have to let it shimmer in your mind a distance,
then quick-like, mark it permanent
before the sky erases.


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

Poem published in Homestead Review, no. 38 (Fall, 2017).
Reprinted in Border Crossing, vol. 4 (Fall 2014).
Featured poem for Multnomah Arts Center Poetry Pole, Portland, OR, July 2018.