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Starfall
Prartho Sereno

We get a few practice runs. One day,
for instance, as your plane lifts off your life
passes before you, the city below strewn
with spent days—at once devastating
and beautiful when spread out this way—
the potholed landscape of catastrophe & grace.

You’ll feel like the bricklayer watching the storm
take down his wall, the conductor at the window of his
emptied train, the gardener at the fence after harvest.

You’ll see the good bits were small but everywhere—
fine threads worked into a coarse weave. You’ll see
what an immensity it is to walk & breathe & feel things
for which there are no words.

You’ll wonder how you missed the tenderness
of the breezes in your leaves.

You’ll wish you’d done almost everything
differently. Then again
would you really change a thing?

—
Prartho Sereno is the author of four prize-winning poetry collections, including, most recently, Indian Rope Trick (Blue Light Book Award, 2018), and her illustrated Causing a Stir: The Secret Lives & Loves of Kitchen Utensils. Poet Laureate Emerita of Marin County, CA, she taught poem-making to children in grades K through 12 as a California Poet in the Schools for over 21 years, and she currently teaches “The Poetic Pilgrimage: Poem-Making as Spiritual Practice” online.

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