Wednesday Poem

Scimitar

A magpie squawks at the top of a blue spruce,
while white-winged doves coo back and forth
across the orchard. Today I did not hike
,,,,,,
into a rainforest and forage for a glowing
neon-green mushroom; I did not fly
to New Guinea to catch birdwing butterflies;
,,,,,,,,,,,,
instead I hiked a trail across patches of snow
and, scratching the trunk of a ponderosa pine,
inhaled a vanilla scent. I strolled in the orchard,
,,,,
,and spotted a magpie nest in an apple tree,
marveled at wisps of clouds like branching red coral
in the sea; near the scimitar of a moon,
,,,,,,
Venus shimmered. As clouds above the horizon
incarnadined, I shoveled snow onto
a strawberry bed; then a dove cooed—on a day
,,,,,,
when I did nothing but search myself
and steep in each minute of the deepening indigo sky,,,,,,,
I suddenly had somewhere everywhere to be.
,,,,,,
by By Arthur Sze  
from The Poetry Foundation, 2025