Landscape as Metaphor

Absence, photo by Drew Myron

 

Keeping Things Whole

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

 

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

 

— Mark Strand

 

I have absence on my mind. A sort of seamlessness. Land meets sky with no distinction. Someone called this blur an ordinary loneliness.

Somewhere is a center, then a horizon as a single grounding line — of fence or hill or endlessness — holding us in or keeping us out. I'm not sure which. 

As often happens, I discover a poem that holds what I feel but can't articulate. Poem as map, as landmark, as grounding and center. Thank you Mark. 

 

Tell me, what's in your (emotional, physical, mental) landscape?