Overlook

Three miles out,
three miles back.

A reasonable bargain.

A narrow trail
threading through stone,

switchback after switchback,

until the canyon opens
without warning

and the earth falls away.

I stand there awhile
kicking tiny pebbles
just to see
how far
they will fall

or how far I would
before I step back.

I sip filtered water
in peace
as a lizard does pilates
against a tuft of pine needles.

Lizards seem too busy
for their own good.

"Relax, have some water,"

I advise
as I drip some drops
his way.

I adjust my daypack and
read the small sign
bolted into the rock.

The sort of ordinary things
people do
when they have arrived.

Then I turn around
and walk the trail
from a new perspective
before leaving the canyon.

Or rather,

my body left.

My attention
stayed.

Days later,
while folding laundry,

a ridge appeared
in the curve of a bedsheet.

Weeks later,

a line of shadow
crossing a parking lot
became the canyon wall
at dusk.

The smell of warm stone.

The cry of a raven.

The blue
that picks you up
and introduces you to
heaven
just before evening.

I have been home
for a month.

The canyon apparently
pays no attention to distance.

It keeps turning up

in laundry,

in shadows,

in the space between
one thought
and the next.

For instance,

Do the mules
appreciate the view?

And what became
of that lizard?

Did he finish
his exercises?

Did anyone else
give him a puddle?

Now, as I watch the rain
fall outside my Missouri window
I suspect

an overlook is simply
a place

where we can see more 
than we did before.

—Iris Lennox