THE TOWER

I climbed an observation tower at twilight
in a state park, high above the Platte,
and watched, off to the east, a drag freight
wrap its silent length around the river's bend,
dusk wind bearing its heavy drone ahead, away.
Miles beyond, the landing lights of aircraft
fell with their wax and steel and feather forms
into the folds of earth and oaks, into
an Omaha one could only trust was there.

Distances misseem in twilight's false perspective;
what's far draws further off; the nearby presses closer.
My ear turned by the siren southwest wind, insistant,
I hear no more the cricket and cicada's rooted song
that falls like rain from the darkened oaks below.

Looking down from fifty feet aloft at dusk
the space seems small:
I don't pull back as I would in full light
but peer down, surprised, engaged, drawn
by the magnet that impels the jumper
toward the edge, the rising catch in the breath,
the fearful urge that tempts our heavy limbs
to try the pliant air, this seductive space,
the easy plunge that seem so short
and utterly astonishes, in the event,
with its endless, awful, whistling distance.

Reprinted with permission

from A Step In the Dark

Copyright ©

by Stephen C. Behrendt