Expansion

Meg Freer

hidden in wing-shadow
wonderful wind of a choir
dust of dark nebulae

Saturn’s moon geysers blast icy droplets
Jupiter as Earth’s sweeper
in the planetary soccer game
its storm may spin only 400 more years
your favorite gas giants visible together

where mountains fold
into former river valleys
frost-churned stones

first landing on the solitary moon
astronauts’ cheeks fell into their eyeballs
so much dust blowing on the surface
they couldn’t tell they were moving
like wind at your back in a snowstorm

so much space and air
waves from marsquakes
lean into the curve

fashion magazines recommend
in uncertain times wear a power suit
wear yours when you come visit
wait for gravity’s slingshot
to send you homeward

primordial solar system spring-fire
expands the ring of spacetime
open space feels too close

The Science

This poem, a meditation on energy in various spaces including outer space, initially draws inspiration from a 1983 LP called Hearing Solar Winds, recorded in a medieval French monastery. In the energy of this vast space, the sound and all the singers’ senses resonated and were amplified, creating a sonic illusion of light energy. The poem then expands to the energy of outer space—geysers, storms, wind, seismic disturbances, Earth’s spin, the moon’s orbit.

The Poet

Meg Freer grew up in Missoula, Montana and studied musicology in Minnesota and New Jersey, where she also worked in scholarly book publishing. She now teaches piano, takes photos, enjoys the outdoors year-round in Ontario, and wishes she had more time to write poetry. Her photos, poems and prose have been published in journals such as Ruminate, Vallum, A3 Review, Poetry South, Eastern Iowa Review, and Arc Poetry. In 2017 she attended the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. Her poems have been shortlisted and have won awards in several contests in both the U.S. and Canada.

Next poem: Healing Currents by Geethanjali Bhas