the poem is a dream telling you its time

is a field 

             as long as the butterflies say 

                                                                       it is a field 

 
with their flight

 
                                         it takes a long time 

to see

                         like light or sound or language

                                                                                      to arrive

and keep 
                         arriving

 
 
                                       we have more

than six sense dialect

                                                                      and i

am still

              adjusting to time

 
                              the distance and its permanence

 
i have found my shortcuts

 
                             and landmarks

                                                          to place

 
where i first took form

                                                                                          in the field

Copyright © 2022 by Marwa Helal. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 3, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem uses syntax to explore simultaneous fields of thought and existence. It also reflects on how poems are a tool of both transformation and travel through time and space. The practice of poem-making results in its own and new form(s), and, if successful, includes the changing and transport of both the writer and reader.”
—Marwa Helal