by Lana Austin —
What has flown away?
Is it a quick moment of air,
once thin and crisp,
the hummingbird beats
into nothing
with his rapid wings?
Or is it something
languid, to vanish
so slowly you are
never aware
of its slipping,
mountains eroding
over thousands of years?
Or is it something,
just as my grandmother
said, not to be spoken
of ever again—
the world’s unwording,
lost beyond time’s
finger-flexing.
This paradox
is everything which isn’t,
like when I die
and someone performs
an autopsy they’ll find
nothing unknown to them,
yet something missing. There
they bear witness to a hymn,
a hallowed center.
Lana Austin was a finalist for the 2015 James Wright Poetry Award. Her work has recently been featured in or is forthcoming from Mid-American Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Southern Women’s Review, among others. Her first poetry chapbook, In Search of the Wild Dulcimer, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Austin has received multiple poetry awards & scholarships from Hollins University, The University of Mary Washington & American University & has an MFA from George Mason University. Born & raised in Kentucky, she has lived in England & Italy but currently resides in Alabama with her husband & three children. An adjunct writing instructor, she teaches multiple writing courses & is about to begin directing the first Opera In the Schools program in Huntsville in 2016, culminating in original operas being written & performed by area students.