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.