Here and There

I sit and meditate—my dog licks her paws
on the red-brown sofa
so many things somehow
it all is reduced to numbers letters figures
without faces or names only jagged lines
across the miles half-shadows
going into shadow-shadow then destruction         the infinite light

here and there            cannot be overcome
it is the first drop of ink
 

Copyright © 2015 by Juan Felipe Herrera. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 14, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.