Moment

Come to the thudding, floating window
where jointed mountains talk to distance
in the cursive colors of horses.

The mountain hangs in the sky
in its socket of white mist,
a ghost of knowing.

Anyone can put hands to this blue
lifted rock that holds the stillness,
turns the shadow and recurring moon.

You who hesitate will grieve,
will one day hold this gliding moment
like a defunct map, a dry, bent wing.

Patricia Nelson is a former attorney who has worked with the “Activist” group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a book forthcoming from Poetic Matrix Press, Out of the Underworld.