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.
“This is a poem from an unpublished collection, “Back to Where I Belong.” Here I am interested in the new dominant discourse of surveillance and data where all other forms of identity are subordinate to it. Nevertheless, this top narrative tier is not exhaustive.”
—Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California, on December 27, 1948. The son of migrant farmers, Herrera moved often, living in trailers or tents along the roads of the San Joaquin Valley in Southern California. As a child, he attended school in a variety of small towns from San Francisco to San Diego. He began drawing cartoons while in middle school, and by high school was playing folk music by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.