The Landing

The wide place on the stairs

That’s either half way up

Or halfway down, always

Gives me pause, stability

As if could flop down

on an invisible couch

And forget for a moment

Staring into the middle distance

Compose a poem in my heart

No matter which way

Up or down, I land

Touching down, grounded

The wide space drawing me in

With clean emptiness, uncluttered

As if the clouds part there

Flooding the room on the stairs

With natural light, and I become

Both sculpture & the artist

At the museum of silence

For a moment I forget

I am needed or necessary or nobody

Here at the landing on the stairs

In the arc of rounding the banister

I become both the dancer & choreographer

For a moment I forget

Where I’m headed up or down

And the wide place on the stairs

Holds silent applause

for my sweep across the stage of life

The wide space on the stairs

That’s either half way up or down

Asks nothing of my Direction

Only calls to me to pause and

Paint the space with my eyes,

Tracing the high corners,

The window sill, the baseboard molding

Taking in the dappled light on the floor

Mixing brilliance of warm wood planks

With the blue shadows from

The old trees outside

And I remember for a moment

On the landing, my belonging—

The co-creation in me,

I am both the art and the artist

Both Beheld and the beholder

No matter my direction

I am Landing

Landing in each step, each breath

In forgetting for a moment,

May I remember forever…