Daily Poem: Read This Poem from the Bottom Up ~ Ruth Porritt
Read This Poem from the Bottom Up
~ Ruth Porritt
(You can read this poem from the first line to the last line, or the last line to the first line)
This simple cathedral of praise
How you made, from the bottom up,
Is for you to remember
Of Andromeda. What remains
Until you meet the ancient light
With your sight you can keep ascending
Its final transformation into space.
And uphold
The horizon’s urge to sculpt the sky
Puts into relief
Your family’s mountain land
Upon the rising air. In the distance
A windward falcon is open high and steady
Far above the tallest tree
Just beyond your height.
You see a young pine lifting its green spire
By raising your eyes
Out onto the roof deck.
You pass through sliding glass doors
And up to where the stairway ends.
To the top of the penultimate stanza
Past the second story,
But now you’re going the other way,
Line by line, to the bottom of the page.
A force that usually pulls you down,
Of moving against the gravity of habit,
While trying not to notice the effort
And feel what it’s like to climb stairs
