Thomas Festa

Point Dume

A misspelled name on a map, the ash of a bitter flower on the tongue. The route home you first knew by heart no longer there. Scorching your nostrils, the sharp tang of creosote from abandoned railroad ties.

When you close your eyes on a moving train, it feels like you’re going backwards.

The range you walked, many hikes through the backcountry. Through sagebrush, chapparal, scrub oak, crawling up slopes. There is some talk of the coming swell and the waves it will bring. You remember so vividly that first taste of the salt air, the view of the ocean coming over the ridge, the distant islands rising off the south bay against a paint-splashed apocalypse of dusk.

chair and easel 
facing the end 
of the continent 

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About the Author

Thomas Festa is a professor of English at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and author of a chapbook of poems, Earthen (Finishing Line Press). His haibun “Skyline” (The Haibun Journal 4.2, 2022) was longlisted for the first Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun. His haibun “Intern” (Poetry Pea Journal and podcast) was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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