*This is a dialogue poem, to be read across the page as one poem, then down the left and right columns as their own poems.
** The words on the left are a quote by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews, which I stumbled into reading this morning on the train platform just before leaving the Lake District, a majestic portion of the earth I was fortunate to walk and to witness in the past few days. These are the words that tumbled out of me as the Lake District sped past and away from me out the train window:
craggy earth,
“It begs, persistent: this
is important ; tumbling; stubborn
to note that land,
in spite of suffering –
how it feels , joyful, to survive,
when remains – fill
you , that silky inside:
inhale, with emptiness;
you know nothing, but
do not only wonder –
actually pull love into
air into your fiercely living. This life, a
body. , breathing through,
On which to tattoo
the contrary, : impermanence; as
air is clumsily
pushed into our eyes,
the body , open, gasping
by gratitude,
the atmospheric overwhelm – of
pressure that fleeting,
always surrounds that which is beautiful –
you. In other words, surely
you create life,
the space , between
and , astonishing,
the universe , asks,
fills only
it.” : that we not
look away.
callie daniels-howell 