Ann Walters
worked extensively as a physical anthropologist in the American Southwest before turning her focus toward writing and raising her children. Much of what she writes is informed by her background in archaeology and a love of nature. Ann’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Carousel, Poetry International, The Pedestal Magazine, and Denver Syntax, among others. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two young daughters.
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Meditation at Johnston RidgeFive miles from the crater,where trees were thrown down like oracle bones and the boiling lake rose as if it had been recalled to heaven, where fireweed and pearly everlasting thrive in the ashy soil, sunlight strikes the comma of an eyelash floating to the ground.
AirYour somnolence surprises me, the steady in and outof air like the all-too-regular workings of machinery. It’s good, having something—someone—to hold onto in the dark or the day or the middle of a crowded train with a hundred strangers pressing all around and only enough air for the two of us plus maybe one young woman busking at the foot of the stairs. Her voice was soft but husky, worn around the edges as if she’d been singing so hard her soul was starting to leak through the spaces between her teeth. She seemed nervous and her hands were pale. When she breathed between phrases I could hear the exultation of her lungs and mine sighed in response. The train moved on without her. I’m sure there are stars gilding the night overhead and moonlight dancing on water, but I see only the hillock of your sleeping form, hear nothing but the reassuring breath of your snore.
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