THE BIG PICTURE
by April Halprin Wayland
New to Portland,
led by my cousin,
I hike beside her.
The air is saturated.
That blade of grass
glistens as I pass.
The dirt is a loamy red.
My shoes will need a cleaning, I think.
Or maybe I’ll leave them, a soft-stained souvenir.
We crunch up the trail—
something rustles to my right
and is gone.
I pluck a low-hanging emerald leaf,
scrunch it between my fingers,
press it to my nose.
“Isn’t that mountain peak beautiful?â€
my cousin asks,
her eyes alive.
Mountain peak?
I look up. I hadn’t seen it.
It is beautiful.
And she?
She didn’t see
the leaf.
published in The Cat ‘n Banjo, January 2006
