~Poem by Emily Dexter
I am standing in the shadows,
On the leaves blown into the room
Through broken windows, light glinting
Off the shards that remain.
I am traveling down a dirt path,
Landing my footsteps in the hoofprints
Of Przewalski’s horses, like a child
Following a father’s boot prints through snow.
Above me hangs the parchment of each leaf,
An overflowing library, and below, nature’s
Name rewritten in the cursive of tree roots.
I am clinging to a balcony railing, high
Above the forest-filled city, the motionless
Ferris wheel, the reactors still towering.
Downy wings rustle, the mother returning
To her chicks cheeping, hungry, on the ledge.
Twenty thousand years, they told us,
Of refuge, until the return of ringing
Telephones, of static, of every human noise.
Emily Dexter is a freshman Writing and Honors Humanities major with a minor in Spanish. She enjoys reading, knitting, and saying hello to all of the cats.