Reeves Keyworth

The minute semaphore
flashing from a tuft of grass
turns out to be, up close,
a spangle of sunlit mica
caught in a spider web.
Near-sightedness can
prevent anxiety but may lead
to a too consoling view
of nature, one woven
from the intimacies
of the small and mild:
a willow leaf half-eaten,
an iridescent wing
rendered in mud. 
Above the lake, hot pines
ascend to granite ridges
where the air
is mostly unoccupied.
The longer view,
brushed with an immense
and monstrous silence,
requires nerve:
Try not to singe the sky
with thought while you consent
to listen for the mountain’s
thousand-year-long out-breath,
which tumbles
boulders down dry slopes.

Reeves Keyworth’s work has received four nominations for a Pushcart Prize, has appeared in Slate, Terrain, Nimrod, Rattle, Verse Daily, The Mississippi Review, Water~Stone, and postcardshorts, among other places. Three chapbooks of her poetry have been published, including Beethoven at Breezy Point (Kattywompus Press). She lives in Tucson.