Platinum expanse: open, endless plain
dotted with forbs but ironing-board flat.
Wisps of clouds, windswept, reach across wide sky.
Down in the left corner a woman stands
posed, softly vertical in that stretched space,
face toward the sun, white skirts billowing
silently. She stares into nowhere, hand
cupped to her ear.
— Michael L. Johnson
reprinted from Michael L. Johnson, Hermes’ Museum: Art Poems (Santa Fe, NM: Flowerpot Mountain Press, 2010
Michael L. Johnson is a professor emeritus from the University of Kansas now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His most notable recent book of poems is Sky Land: A Southwestern Cycle (Topeka, KS: Woodley Press), which received the 2010 New Mexico Book Award in po
Quite a tribute to a special lady from one of the great poets of the West.