GEOMETRY by Barbara Strasko

Geometry

Don’t think
of what doesn’t
exist, search only
for heat where the
shallow snow
flies like dust.

A dark rock lost
in the mist of
the blue river.
A few branches
against yellow light.

A white lily might
be a cloud against
a dark landscape,
or one albino leaf

fallen on a lake
where the snow geese
disturb its rest

It seems I am still
trying to connect
one thing to another,
to make up for one critical

moment. The white
becomes emptiness
which, for the sake of the world,
must never be lacking

anywhere.

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My poem reflects my reverence for the unspoiled, unexploited areas in the world. We have lost our respect for the forces of nature and for our connection with and dependence on nature. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is more frightening each day. I recognize parallels with the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979: an out-of-control, profit-driven energy industry, and a regulatory agency in bed with it.

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Barbara Buckman Strasko is the first Poet Laureate of Lancaster County. She is the 2009  River of Words Teacher of the Year and is the Poet in the Schools for Poetry  Paths in Lancaster city.  Her poems have appeared in: Best New Poets, Rhino, Nimrod, Brilliant Corners, Ninth Letter. Her chap book On the Edge of a Delicate Day was published by Pudding House Press in 2008.