poetry

    "Considering the Case" (V. P. Loggins)

    Photo of yellow leaves clustering and piling up on the banks and tributaries of a stream otherwise surrounded by green vegetation

    Considering the Case

            after a line by Stephen Dunn

    It is sensible, certainly, to assert
    that feelings are partly the problem.
    They slide like leaves down otherwise
    clear streams, tangle on the rocks,
    block the flow, and like beavers dam
    things up. And though this remains
    a fact, when we consider the case
    we are forced to admit that lakes
    can be formed in this way, lowlands
    converted to embrace the reflected
    beauty of a blue sky, and our feelings,
    we must sometimes accept, form
    the foundations of new habitats
    where the egrets of our imaginations
    shock the dull earth with their white.

    V. P. Loggins
    —found in Poetry East (Autumn 2015; No. 86)

    Photo adapted from one by Ryan Lara on Unsplash