Isaac James Richards
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Hiking
The place where / neck meets shoulder / a bend in the river / or the rising of ravine / that taut parabola / slope changing / with / the elevation / gain / rivulets of blood / tracing tendon paths / tension / easing / through the underbrush / a pheasant / weaving left and right / releasing little meeps / for popped ears / open to waterfall roars / loud as insight / the line between / body and mind / earth and space / settles / as a willow bows / toward reflection / the pull of gravity / on backpack straps / against trapezoids / where we carry / stress / puts us in a permanent shrug / toward this incomprehensible world / relaxing / loosening / smoothing / arcing toward / peaks piercing / the sky of / a galactical asymptote / Ache —after Lisa Bickmore There’s not always a cause-- that would be too fair. It appears inside the squares we draw for ourselves, no matter how hard we try to keep it out. Then there’s the timing—always when least expected, but not always when it seems likely. I, for example, did not anticipate a visitation on Sunday afternoon, mid-summer after a brownie and ice cream just before a nap, sunshine filtering through the blinds, casting shadowy lines on the bed, crossing the creases in the sheets, white as sunlight. That’s when it jumped like a cricket at the window, bouncing off, stung by its failure to recognize the violence hiding in that transparency, but that’s usually how it goes: openings can as soon be rigid as they can be freeing. And who would think a sunny summer afternoon, after eat and drink, and before sleep could be a moment that manifests the weightless gravity of this world-- the illusion that has us all mistaking glass for air, and panes for pain. |
Isaac James Richards is a poet, essayist, graduate student and first-year writing instructor in the BYU English Department. He has won four poetry contest awards and five essay contests, with his most recent poems forthcoming in Amethyst Review, BYU Studies Quarterly, Constellations, The Encephalon, Irreantum, Trampoline, Volney Road Review, and elsewhere. He is also a reader for Fourth Genre and a contributing editor at Wayfare. He can be reached via his personal website: https://www.isaacrichards.com/.