vatn // lake

Robert Fanning

Even on mountains, you measure your ascent by how far you rise from
me. What are you running from, riverveined one, drawn by sea and sky.
Why this fear of being bound by one body temporarily. Do you believe
you wear only one face? Watch me mirror passing clouds, double rising
moons, let windlashed rain ravage me. What’s to fear in settling the matter.
In being anywhere a moment. Smallsea, riverhaven. I am source, yet still you
can’t catch my drift, don’t see me lifting into air, spilling toward the coast.
Listen. There’s nothing untoward in becoming. In just being who you are.

Even on mountains, you measure your ascent by how far you rise from
me. What are you running from, riverveined one, drawn by sea and sky.
Why this fear of being bound by one body temporarily. Do you believe
you wear only one face? Watch me mirror passing clouds, double rising
moons, let windlashed rain ravage me. What’s to fear in settling the matter.
In being anywhere a moment. Smallsea, riverhaven. I am source, yet still you
can’t catch my drift, don’t see me lifting into air, spilling toward the coast.
Listen. There’s nothing untoward in becoming. In just being who you are.


Robert Fanning

Robert Fanning is the author of five full-length collections of poetry: Cage (forthcoming), Severance (2019), Our Sudden Museum (2017), American Prophet (2009) and The Seed Thieves (2006), as well as two chapbooks: Sheet Music (2015) and Old Bright Wheel (2002). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, The Atlanta Review, Waxwing, THRUSH, Diode, The Cortland Review, The Common, and many other journals. He is a Professor of English at Central Michigan University, the Founder/Facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series in Mt. Pleasant, MI., and the Director of PEN/INSULA POETRY, a resource for Michigan poets. 

For more information, visit: https://robertfanning.wordpress.com/