Used to walk through life
Nose stuck in a book,
only saw the world
in periphery of pages.

An artist of escape,
a dreamer in your youth.
Fleeing reality through stories
in all ages.

Looking up, growing up, into
something of your own.
Writing new worlds,
stuck exploring, dreams grown.
Like you did, now see
beauty in periphery.

An escape artist turned explorer.

The tall young woman in a golden dress
spins a globe upon her desk and waits,
and waits till calloused finger comes to rest
upon an unknown wilderness. What spaces
lie yet undiscovered, like tabletops
to be uncovered / to be uncovered:
secret words within a foreign bookshop
under dust and under clutter—
Wiped clean! The tablecloth's pulled off! Now she
will be the first to glean their mysteries:
To see what no one else has ever seen,
To be where no one else has ever been.
Until nothing is obscured for her.
For hers is this world and she its explorer.

We've sailed cerulean seas to pastel shores,
Known only to the glorious few,
We have disembarked, ready to explore,
As our lone ship waits slumbering in view
of the glorious bay. Light paints daybreak
across the sky. We see the rising sun
through imagined jungle—and hesitate:
The image lingers, but it must be done,
Eyes close. Toward the interior we turn
remembering, and hoping to return.

fat drips
      fire, sausage crackles—flames
      hiss of steam

winter fir
–ing of a thawing musket
crows scatter

We soft fingers
linger
on the locked
door
laid before
the world
we abhor,

wooden rot
ready to be open
so, we can explore
the radiant wonders
that lay
in the day
on the other side
of this dark night
life.