High Wire Venus

OFF A SIDE ROAD NEAR STAUNTON

Some nothing afternoon,
no one anywhere,

an early autumn stillness in the air,

the kind of empty day you fill
by taking in

the full size of the valley
and its layers leading

slowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of the country,

if you stand here long enough, you could stay

for, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wall,

pulls you in, one field at a time,
pasture and fall

meadow, high above the harvest, perfect

to the tree line, then spirit clouds and intermittent

sunlight smoky rain riding the tops of the mountains,

though you could walk until it's dark
and not reach those rains --

you could walk the rest of the day into the picture

and not know why,
at any given moment,
you're there.

Stanley Plumley

Stanley Plumly is the author, most recently,
of "Posthumous Keats:
A Personal Biography"
(Norton, 2008).
All rights reserved.