Faraway | Jim Peterson
Shin-deep leaves
cover the path. The soles
of my feet arch
over the hard surface roots
of maples.
The trail wanders
like a rope tossed in the air
down the slope
to the hub of a three-
spoked wheel of run-off
gulches, one of them
continuing down
to finally drain
into Blackwater Creek.
The center of this hub,
hidden from nearby
roads and yards
by the folding hills,
is where I stand.
I feel faraway
as if in deep forest.
Three deer, frozen
among the winter
birches, have seen me
many times, but still
they keep a close watch,
their black eyes
casting me
in the spell of these woods.
I’m turning on the axis
of the wheel of this place,
the trees spiraling up
into their high,
winter-stripped canopies
catching the last
elongated traces of sun,
the last breezes crawling
among the dead leaves
still holding on up there—
still capturing the first cold particles
of night, coming on.
About the Author:
Jim Peterson has published the novel Paper Crown from Red Hen Press in 2005 and seven poetry collections, most recently The Horse Who Bears Me Away from Red Hen Press in 2020 and Speech Minus Applause from Press 53 in 2019. His collection of short stories, The Sadness of Whirlwinds, was published by Red Hen late in 2021. He retired as Coordinator of Creative Writing at Randolph College in 2013 and remains on the faculty of the University of Nebraska-Omaha MFA Program in Creative Writing. He lives with his charismatic, three-legged Corgi, Mama Kilya, in Lynchburg, Virginia.