Met, Jennifer

English

The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

  RINGS AROUND US JENNIFER MET the ring of fire—just a thought— it sounds like something from high fantasy magical jewelry forged deep in the magma heart of Middle Earth—an ancient artifact of more violent times—fiction—but it is real— the name given to the Earth’s Pacific Rim—rife with seismic activity—with volcanic eruptions and earthquakes—with the collision of many tectonic plates—a place I have never been— a place I have not even seen on television recently—it has been months since the reports of earthquake and tsunami damage—the area again shrouded in invisibility—just a thought as I sit in the emergency room lobby waiting for the final paperwork—the scare is over and for a brief moment I even heard the baby heartbeat materialize—fast and strong—under my own steady rhythm—so now it is faith on which I live—belief that that ancient moment was real—not just high fantasy—and as I walk the forest next to my home these months later I see a black bear—a cub huffing from high up a yellow pine—where is the mother—just Met 58 1Met: Rings Around UsPublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2017  a thought—but I know she is there—invisible— but there—as sure as the Pacific Rim—as sure as a wedding ring merging two souls across time and place—as sure as my jogging heartbeat or the life growing inside me—as sure as the Japanese aftershocks were real—not just fiction— somewhere—and for the first time I feel like a mother my heart reaching to overlap the baby I can’t keep secret—theoretical—safe—fiction—just a thought     2Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal, Vol. 16, Iss. 1 [2017], Art. 18https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol16/iss1/18

Rings Around Us

https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2206&context=harpurpalate

Rings Around Us

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