Weekly Poem: ‘Crossings’

By Ravi Shankar

Between forest and field, a threshold

like stepping from a cathedral into the street–
the quality of air alters, an eclipse lifts,

boundlessness opens, earth itself retextured

into weeds where woods once were.
Even planes of motion shift from vertical

navigation to horizontal quiescence:
there’s a standing invitation to lie back

as sky’s unpredictable theater proceeds.

Suspended in this ephemeral moment

after leaving a forest, before entering
a field, the nature of reality is revealed.

Ravi Shankar is founding editor of the online journal of the arts Drunken Boat. He teaches at Central Connecticut State College where he is poet-in-residence and in the MFA program at City University of Hong Kong.