A Meditation on Form
Papery blossom
in a rock sea—
or is it the sea itself
shrunk to a pool
on an ancient map?
Today, the sky burns
so we turn up-trail
toward boulders
where lichen
unfurls, slow-tells
the future of the
before-us forest
as it builds a self
from warming air.
Over compressed
rock layers, ancient
wave impressions,
the lichen is
a cyan prayer—
form and breath
interweaving, the
we supplicating we—
brief as sea-foam
over red sandstone.
Radha Marcum’s work is rooted in ecological, social, and personal landscapes of the American West. Read more.