The Edge of the Gorge
Man is by nature a political animal —Aristotle
Canyons between us we can’t understand.
Tell me stranger at this political divide,
what thresholds you failed to cross,
what you lost, that there’s more
than nothing between us.
Freedom of thought, soft as lambs-ear,
cashmere, fragrant as thyme-walked
ground. Somewhere between love & hate,
atheist & saint. Even Tolstoy wrote first of war.
Peace falls like spring rain, an eagle feather.
Tell me neighbor of thresholds you failed
to cross, what you lost, that there’s more
than nothing between us.
“Can you divide this apple into three halves?”
your daughter asked, feeding other hungry mouths
as she opened hers. Division as portioning.
Peace drops like a whisper between prairie warbler
and lark bunting, one feeder, tern and gull, one shore,
low tide and high. Over mountains, plains, drop
all your thoughts, friend, until edges give way, tell me
of thresholds you failed to cross, what you lost,
that there’s more than nothing between us. I’m wary
watching the broad-winged hawk circle, dive & rise.
Let stones shake from the ground up.
I want to feel the lift of your breath
on my cheek as you speak.
Judith Janoo won the Soul-Making Keats Award, the Vermont Award for Continued Excellence in Writing, and the Anita McAndrews Award for human rights poetry, and was Reader’s Choice for the Poetry Society of Vermont. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was finalist for the Dana Award and Vermont Writers’ Prize. Her chapbook, After Effects, will soon be published and released by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry also appears in Main Street Rag, Evening Street Review, The Mountain Troubadour, and Vermont Magazine.
