Waking Up

Look if you like, but you will have to leap. – Auden

In waiting there is hope—there is hope,

and dread: both somehow preferable

to certainty, if outwardly appropriate,

that may scathe. You are due your ineffable

deliberation, but I’ll concede

in the flash of my waking (in guilt

you hadn’t let me drive,

                                                you fetched a quilt,

                                                            closed

your eyes—

morning caught us hungover and clothed

though no accountability exists,

no reason to diminish, fear, or forgo

this                        ) I was happy. Yeah, I said so.

-by Jen Coleman

Jen Coleman is from Lynchburg, Virginia, where she dropped out of high school. She received a fellowship from the MFA program at Hollins University. “Waking Up” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.

Kicking Cairns

Nothing recommends this boulder

over the ten thousand others

in the field, except that

someone else, as lost as you,

thought to pile some stones here.

The chaos that confronts you

will evolve into a pattern

that bigger things broke into.

The freedom measured by each fall:

No one knows where you are.

It’s easy to make a statement out of

stones piled up within arm’s reach:

Here I have been; harder to know

which of the piles you come upon

you should kick down.

-by Rick Kempa

Rick Kempa lives in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he teaches writing and philosophy at Western Wyoming College. “Kicking Cairns” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.

Tidal Locking

We know the trepidation of the spheres

and distances measured in beams.  How near

does each arm of Donne’s compass

reach, like spider filament for a truss,

spinning across a growing galaxy?

We orbit the blackness by degrees,

our stuck faces, like Charon and Pluto

stretched beyond a desperate sostenuto,

searching for how to agree

on our topography.

- Diana Smith

This poem originally appeared in the Spring 2011 volume of the Jackson Hole Review.

Counting Wild Horses

The most efficient way

to count

wild horses

is helicopter flights—the great

speed and whir

of blades in air drives

mustangs from the brush

We count them

three piebald

seven chestnut

two roan

all grey with dust of the plain

Over the low thrum

of the heli comes

the rumble

of hooves black

cracked from shifting rocks

and shale

They gallop towards the ravine

below them, the river

Just when it seems

we will lose them all

they peel from the brink

manes swirling

like plover wings

over salt-damp sand

- Jenny Minniti-Shippey

Jenny Mininiti-Shippey is the managing editor of Poetry International and a professor at San Diego State University. This poem was featured in the Jackson Hole Review, Spring 2011.

 

Bend of Light in A Mountain Meadow

No, not likely, or so she seemed

to imply with a nod. A fritillary

wandered nearby, bounced over a lupine

and became lost in indian paintbrush.

We always departed by passing one another

and settling in another part of a meadow.

Some said they all seemed routine

from a certain distance, but we noticed

subtleties in the bend of light

and settled in different hues.


- Kirk Vandyke 

Kirk Vandyke is an entomologist living in Laramie, Wyoming. This poem originally appeared in the Spring 2011 volume of the Jackson Hole Review.