Graduation
—for Emily Ramstetter, after Jack Spicer
Everyone forgets exactly
Exactly how Earth disappears in a vast field
Or the misshapen figures of the cloud fragments above them
Or their haphazardness out of which birds fly.
Everyone forgets exactly.
The eye is content of whatever freezes
And the heart
Is not far enough exhumed from the sky
To think.
My sister is going on a limitless journey
Those flying blue atoms above us
Penetrating our hearts exactly like darkness
Look
These wings, these open eyes
Detesting only at first
The first cloud of the thunderstorm.
I jumped out of bed with joy this morning
Couldn’t feel my toes. See the surfacing
Of the blue atoms
The noisy movement of cloud
The pull of the scoliosis valleys
At the beginning of a limitless field.
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Estab. Anthony Ramstetter, Jr., serves as Editor-in-Chief for Oxford Magazine, Poetry Editor for New Delta Review, Co-Director and Co-Coordinator of the Delta Mouth Literary Festival, and Managing Director for Pan-Writers Caravan. His writing has appeared in Ballast Journal, Epiphany, Five, The Oklahoma Review, petrichor, Poetry, The Puritan, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. His honors include a Poet Laureateship from Miami University Men’s Glee Club, the Kent Gramm MFA Award for Literary Nonfiction, and the Betty Jane Abrahams Memorial Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets.
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Michael Anderson takes pictures while traveling in national parks, rural counties, and cities. He carries his camera while running errands on his bicycle in Chicago.
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