Leap

[Lisa Walford]

Jericho Brown is a contemporary Pulitzer prize winning poet. He has influenced many young writers through his professorship and creative writing programs at the University of Houston, San Diego, and Emery University. In this poem I find an apt analogy for modern times. How we, as Joni Mitchel sings, go "round and round and round in the circle game - captive in the carousel of time.."  

The last line in this poem...  I often feel like one day follows another, one spring turns to another summer, and I am fine with that. At my age, I prefer to embrace an open sky and feel the earth beneath my bare feet, at least once a day. no mountain to climb, nothing to prove. So for me, the last word in this poem signifies a leap of faith... Perhaps kindness, persistence, and equanimity will suffice. There are those who take offence with this and say that it is being complacent. That we must rise up, there will be no justice for any until there is justice for all. I am sure that is true! Some of us are warriors, some are healers, teachers, mothers, poets. Leap my friends..

       

The Crossing                            Jericho Brown

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.

The water is one thing, making this bridge

Built over the water another. Walk it

Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone

Rising just to find a way toward rest again.

We work, start on one side of the day

Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight

Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God

I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing

To cross back. I’m set

On something vast. It reaches

Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger

Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.