Thursday, October 8, 2026: Two poems by Terry Wolverton: "The Farthest North I’ve Ever Been" and "Not going to Paris"

Terry Wolverton is author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, including Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse: art and life at the Woman’s Building, a memoir; and her most recent novel, Season of Eclipse. She’s edited sixteen literary compilations. Terry received a COLA Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, a Publishing Triangle award for nonfiction, and a Fellowship in Poetry from the California Arts Council. She is the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

http://terrywolverton.com

The Farthest North I’ve Ever Been

Which way is north? I think I once knew

but now I’m turned around. There used to be

a star to follow, but I can’t find

it in the sky. Everything so

brightly lit at night in the never-

ending city. We’ve blinded the stars.

The path ahead, is that north? Feels like

earth’s axis has shifted. The road’s off-

kilter. Coyotes can’t find their way

home. Bears dive into backyard swimming

pools. How far can we go, the north on

fire? Melting, you can’t tell north from south.

In Banff, I walked to glacier’s edge.

There was a pay phone; I stepped inside,

plunked in coins, called the southern Baja.

Back then, when you could tell the difference,

Equator or North Pole. Canada’s

burning, Alaska thaws. Walruses

huddle on ice cubes, no room to stretch.

I once flew over Greenland, gawked down

at the ice sheet, a polar blanket,

I rained carbon from above, like god.

Where was I going then? Wherever it was,

I’m here, now, lost beneath a burned out bulb.

© Terry Wolverton

Not going to Paris

The city won’t miss me.

The baker and the olive vendor

will go on without me.

Street sweepers will ply their trade.

The Seine flows on.

I’m staying home to see the walls

come down, kitchen torn apart.

I live in a world in flames,

where horses run for their lives.

No horses in my stripped kitchen.

Dust settles over everything.

I am exiled, trapped in abstraction,

a prison of symbols, stranded lexicon.

A lost earring, searched for in the rain,

found weeks later flattened on the drive.

The world demands its sacrifices.

Gargoyles on the Notre Dame leer

from behind construction fencing.

Present smashes into past,

though we try to pretend they are distinct.

I don’t have to show my face.

I can wear a different mask every day of the week.

A horse on Wednesday, monster on Sunday.

The world looks different through those eyeholes,

the peripheral constricted.

Paris might seem gray with age;

California desert appears monochrome

until you really look to notice the mosaic

of grays and tans and greens

vibrating in heat shimmer.

This page will wither into dust,

stamped with horse’s hooves. A leaf renews.

I might not recognize the secrets

it holds in its delicate veins,

what stars whisper at night.

© Terry Wolverton