Here to Reach

There is so much
I cannot touch with words.
I must cede, cede my poetry role.
The scent of the oxblood rose
I leaned to breathe just now,
its richness
as far beyond our human languages
as galaxies out yonder.

I must make way
for what is far outside my reach.
I cannot tell you of that smell,
only that it enters me
and there’s nothing for it but to swoon
and be enveloped
by the arms of its aroma,
and let myself be taken

away from words. And how could a poem
that must dance on a living tongue
convey the ringing in the air
that is the sound of the silence now descending.
More than stillness, a hush
full of a million messages.
For the earth is alive, and her silence
cannot be anything else.

Why try to convey the color
of the petals of the sunflower.
Maybe a painter has the name
for something orange and yellow,
sienna and umber all at once,
something dark and bright
at the same time, something
boldly gold and rising thick,

distinct from the black volcanic seedbed,
from the circle of that sunflower depth.
Smells and colors and sounds
can be conjured, so I try,
but they never can be captured live
outside the shining present moment,
given to the so fortunate human
smelling and seeing and hearing them.

Art extends our range and yet
we stretch and lunge but never grasp
the cloud, the bird, How could we?
Though the finest poems are jargon cages
for specimens already dead,
we have to try to catch the air,
and love, and the feel of the baby’s head.
Because each of us is here to reach.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026