Unpacking a Globe
--Arthur Sze 

I gaze at the Pacific and don't expect
to ever see the heads on Easter Island, 

though I guess at sunlight rippling
the yellow grasses sloping to shore; 

yesterday a doe ate grass in the orchard:
it lifted its ears and stopped eating 

when it sensed us watching from
a glass hallway—in his sleep, a veteran 

sweats, defusing a land mine.
On the globe, I mark the Battle of 

the Coral Sea—no one frets at that now.
A poem can never be too dark, 

I nod and, staring at the Kenai, hear
ice breaking up along an inlet; 

yesterday a coyote trotted across
my headlights and turned his head 

but didn't break stride; that's how
I want to live on this planet: 

alive to a rabbit at a glass door—
and flower where there is no flower.

Poem and illustration from Poetry Daily's series running through the end of March to help us all mange through the coronavirus epidemic.