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The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > Issue 47 > Poetry >Sean Patrick Hill - Enlightenment, or Something Close To It

Enlightenment, or Something Close To It
 
This is not a nature poem, because
As Buddhists say, there is no nature.
 
The creek doesn't twist up the gulch,
I do. Sometimes blindly.
 
Gulch. What is it about this word I love?
It sounds like water swallowing the sky.
 
I'll begin by naming this small joy.
After that, I'll identify these flowers.
 
You know it's near dawn
When robins start up their small talk.
 
Have you ever noticed the robin's song
Is different in the evening?
 
The map calls the meadow Swede Park.
I call it the place with yellow bells,
 
Phlox "like melting snow," shooting stars,
Sagebrush, a tiny spider in the scree.
 
I'll say, remembering a poem, that these aspens are
"Climbing like cold fire."
 
I'll begin by naming this: Small Joy.
After that, I'll identify with these flowers.









Sean Patrick Hill is a freelance writer, naturalist, and teacher living in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnham Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, Alba, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, Unlikely 2.0, and Quarter After Eight. His blog site is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.
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