Friday, May 10, 2024: L. Ward Abel's "Funnel"

 


L. Ward Abel’s work has appeared in hundreds of journals (Rattle, Versal, The Reader, Worcester Review, Main Street Rag, others), and he is the author of four full collections and ten chapbooks of poetry, including his latest collection, Green Shoulders: New and Selected Poems 2003–2023 (Silver Bow, 2023). Abel resides in rural Georgia.


Funnel


Conjured:

a 1979-moment

as I stepped from the boat

at Calais


when

the Bering Strait was

strangely lit

in the distance


and in a trice was sliced

ahead at an edge

of the super-landmass

into infinite sections.


There were no lines

on the ground showing

passage to or through

that big continent.


It’s water or land

that always turns us back,

or mountains

like blood that hover.


But maybe

green bridges of soil

stretch out beyond,

I thought—


the funnel that fed

and opened a halved planet.

I laughed.

I walked.


© 2024 L. Ward Abel



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