RockPaperPoem

 

Presence

by Lauren Camp

 

From a plane—hovering,
the earth fragments in a grid of brown and green.

Every time I look out,
all absence and new patterns, repeated.

I have packed in shoulds and come farther to wake
in desolation. I don’t know this yet.

What I can’t see is duration,
the perpetual upheaval and sinking.

Water chases itself, crying its name.


Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), winner of the American Fiction Award in Poetry. Other honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, North American Book Award, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poet Lore and The Los Angeles Review, and has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com.


 

RockPaperPoem