Everyone talks about October light as if
it’s a singularity, but light is
a variable one month can’t contain. Light is
a life story in which the world
glances through space while the last
hummingbirds cut the air with delicate
precision & trees are on the wing,
their leaves & their leavings, & once,
looking up, I saw birds impossibly
high in a broken line (if pattern could be
syncopated), bird by bird in staggered sequence:
sandhill cranes, which explains the length
of their passing ghostlike above, long silhouettes
in & out of clouds, reminding me
how my mother dappled in & out of my view—
after her diagnosis, metastasis, we were farther
than a wingspan apart even when I was right
next to her bedside while nothing changed
but everything. I hold light more tenderly now,
knowing how it goes.
Migration
Elinor Ann Walker (she/her) holds a PhD in English from the University of North Caroline-Chapel Hill, lives near the mountains, and prefers to write outside. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Nimrod International Journal, The Penn Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Plume, Poet Lore, Shō Poetry Journal, The Shore, The Southern Review, SWING, Terrain.org, The Vassar Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She has recently completed a full-length manuscript of poetry and two chapbooks. Find her online at https://elinorannwalker.com.