*West of Wasco — Oregon fields, farms, roads.*
Photo by Drew Myron

1.
So much of my writing life is the drive to the story not yet told.

Backroads and hillsides, wide sky and shifting light. Across highway and gravel, through fields and farms, bends and turns, my mind winding with anticipation.

2.
I arrive and smile.

Tell me your story, I say without saying. I listen and nod, take too many notes. I will tuck your words in my ribs, a small cage of secrets, fears, and sometimes tears.

I see you, I say without saying.

3.
On the drive home, I’ll carry a weight. The landscape is immense, and in this largeness I am suddenly small.

How to contain this beauty and truth?

I will snap photo after photo. But I cannot capture the quiet, the wind through fields, the fresh crop, the collective sigh.

4.
The road is long and the mind races, spools, finally slows.

Everything is brightness and beauty. In the green field beneath the blue sky, I both live in, and stand outside, the moment.

I was always writing.

the poem is a dream telling you its time

is a field

as long as the butterflies say

it is a field

with their flight

it takes a long time

to see

like light or sound or language

to arrive

and keep
arriving

we have more

than six sense dialect

and i

am still

adjusting to time

the distance and its permanence

i have found my shortcuts

and landmarks

to place

where i first took form

in the field

— Marwa Helal