Keith Polette

Mid Point

Some questions cannot be answered.
—Jane Hirshfield, “Woman in Red Coat”

Three days alone in the mountains, and I want to tell someone about how the lake near my camp is so clear that it is like a portal through which I can see fish that are ten thousand years old; about the hummingbirds that whir overhead like flecks of comets; about the gray fox silhouetted on the ridge top at dusk like the outline of a prayer that I’ve yet to learn; about the chipmunk that, after three hours, finally took a dried banana chip from my hand; about the moose, with antlers wider than a sofa, rummaging through trees like a bad mood looking for a body; about the undulating campfire flames, seeds of sun on short-term loan; and about the sea of stars overhead, bright granules of sugar slowly dissolving into the coffee that, between breaths, I sip in the morning.

summer solstice—
lost in the synastry of wolf howl
and rising moon

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About the Author

Keith Polette lives in El Paso, Texas. He is the author of a book of haiku, The New World, and a book of haibun, Pilgrimage, both published by Red Moon Press. Pilgrimage won the 2021 Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book from the Haiku Society of America.