In this week’s poem, Steve Langan calls up a litany of guidance and meditations. I love how this poem ranges across myriad observations and acts, yet still coheres as a whole, and I love how it ends — on a promise of unexpected transcendence.

Langan is the author of the collections “Freezing” (New Issues), and “Meet Me at the Happy Bar” (BlazeVox), and some chapbooks. He lives in Yarmouth and on Cliff Island.

Brown Cow

Let’s shift our focus to the reefs and the waves and the ocean floor.
Let’s shift our desires to charity and good tidings and love.
The cursable wind and rain!
Certain words in the Romance languages must never be said improperly.
And I am training myself to remember the names
of the people in my life who retain an air of insignificance.

There is not enough time left to summon all the apologies.
In certain photos, we appear to have joy, purpose.
No one told us with enough time it’s inevitable
we will cross through, cross over,
to this or some other exalted place.
Nobody prepared us, not at all, for this crossing.

— Steve Langan

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. DEEP WATER: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Brown Cow,” copyright ©2024 by Steve Langan, was originally published in “Bedtime Stories” (Littoral Books). It appears by permission of the author.