I have been here
a long time.
The trees we’ve planted
have become a woods
where I can walk un-
seen, or so I assume
I am more shadow
than sound, walking
pine-scented
paths, watching
boughs shift in wind,
in birds’ weight, in
graze of hand that up-
sets small clouds of
pollen to lift– and
this world shifts too,
to the sky’s assembly of
geese, like a loose
lasso, they slide beneath
the horizon’s blue water-
mark— vanishing
into the quick current
of day.
M.J. Iuppa is Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor at St. John Fisher College and part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Her three full poetry collection are Within Reach, Night Traveler, and most recently Small Worlds Floating (Cherry Grove Collections), in addition to five chapbooks. She received Writers and Books’ The Big Pencil Award, honouring her lifelong contributions to Rochester’s Literary Community and served as the poetry adviser for New York State Foundation for the Arts from 2007-2012.