Analytical Distance

Analytical Distance

Step back to see
what you thought you were seeing
clearly. Amidst
is a mist. Fetch the edges instead
of the center,
the yellowing silver maple, the ends
of its leaves
serrated like paper snowflakes,
the gray sky
behind all of this, and us, the year
and decade
we belong to. The century and those
adjacent to it.
The hemisphere, and the planet.
To learn more,
put your life on a table. Take your
hands away,
let it clatter against the table until
it stills. It will,
and then you can look. Crawl around.
Install yourself
in a high corner, between the ceiling
and the wall
where a waiting room television goes
and watch.
The first thing you feel. Notice it,
and walk
through it, backward, pointing out
what you have
been trying to tell yourself for years.
Keep moving
with the surety of a student tour guide
coaxing anxious
families through a college campus,
Here is the library
and the dining hall, and next, the best
dorm, the biggest
and most popular, evening quiet hours
gently enforced
and, of course, a real sense of community.