Annie Stenzel

Reminder

Do not forget to chronicle with gratitude the fox
we saw, barred owl we heard, the unobstructed stars
that blessed the Green Gulch path we walked
along, our bodies replete with wholesome fare
prepared for us by the aspirants.

Three days shocked by the reek of smoke
have fed awareness of how fast the Fates
conspire against a place, obliterate
the hubris of its occupants. We don’t
dare say what’s next? because

just as the world is round, so is the circle
of catastrophe, which means that only
a random number of infinitesimal points
along the circumference separates my eventual
doom from yours, or theirs, or anyone’s.

Annie Stenzel‘s collection, The First Home Air After Absence, was published by Big Table in 2017.  Her poems have appeared in many online and print journals in the U.S. and U.K. She lives within sight of the San Francisco bay. For more, visit www.anniestenzel.com