Sunset X [California Poppies]

By Virginia Barrett

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But sitting looking out I imagine spaces

beyond this one, each without end,

and silences more than human . . .

Giacomo Leopardi

After hours of reading at the press

the page has lost its meaning. I return

to the house where I rent a room, brew

a pot of tea, and sit on the floor in front

of the picture window with a wide view

of the bay. The island ferry has gone back

and forth all day; the mountain beyond

continues covered in snow, white as

the clouds and billowed sails of small boats

that appear transfixed by shimmering.

Leopardi felt his heart drawn to the edge of

fear gazing at open space—so in this immensity

my thinking drowns—but let me simply

drift as color floods the sky and poppies

fold to compose silences lent to us.

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Virginia Barrett’s books of poetry include Between Looking, (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming, 2019) Crossing Haight, and I Just Wear My Wings. Her work has most recently appeared in the Writer’s Chronicle, Narrative, What Rough Beast, Roar: Literature and Revolution by Feminist People, Ekphrastic Review, Weaving the Terrain (Dos Gatos Press), and Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press).  She received a 2017 writer’s residency grant from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of Taos, NM. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.