I’m
that man on the rooftop
others mistake for a jumper—
but I am here only to see
the skyline closer
and to get above
the doorposts before the angel passes by.
Nobody
quite believes me, though,
for all my words having fallen
past usefulness.
I pick them up like stones
to glimpse their undersides,
to weigh them in my hands and fling them on.
Who
is this “we,” for instance,
so often spoken of these days?
You and I—we’re like those farm birds
leaving fence posts
to fly full-bodied
against each other. Still, I believe that we
are,
nonetheless, gifts to one another—
of that I am sure.
For such sentimental claims
I’m often dismissed,
though I doubt
fiercer words will be found in me.
You
won’t remember
that boy I was years ago,
batting rocks across the creek,
but each arc of flight
into the brush
was one more forgiveness that reached the other side.
Jeff Hardin is the author of Fall Sanctuary, recipient of the Nicholas Roerich Prize from Story Line Press, and Notes for a Praise Book, selected by Toi Derricotte for the Jacar Press Book Award. His third collection, Restoring the Narrative, received the Donald Justice Poetry Prize and is forthcoming in 2015. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Hotel Amerika, Southern Poetry Review, Meridian, and elsewhere. He teaches at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, TN. His website is www.jeffhardin.weebly.com.