Poem: “Pass”
April 26: 30 days of new poems for National Poetry Month
Published in
Apr 27, 2024
Pass
You cannot look. The image will stay with you
forever if you do. You cannot risk this. How might
it change you? Influence your future choices?
This could be your crossroads, your fork in the road.
Whether the falling tree makes a noise depends not
on whether someone is there, but on your definition
of sound. Did the person driving that car die
in the accident you just passed by?
We step out through the motel door, and there
is hail on the railing, hail on the ground, and
cigarettes in the air. Donner Pass might as well
have never existed. And yet, rising about the casino
and the freeway, there are the snow-crested mountains.
Reminding us that “pass” is both noun and verb.
