May They Reach / Joshua Alan Sturgill
There’s no beauty without surprise.
A child longs to be the soul
of the swings and the slide,
to animate matter with shared delight.
Or is a soul a midnight
landscape — aware but blind, mistaking
what’s vast and whirling for flicks
of slow-moving time? There, far,
far out of reach of these clumsy limbs
and thoughts, insistence duels eternity
and there I weave a staggered path to You
that are that You are from I
that am only I when I am drunk
in You. For an aeonian wait the child
kicks the floor, sizzles the clock
with nerves, lobs hope’s munitions
toward that slow-approaching life.
may these words
may these limbs
may they reach astonishment
All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2026 by Joshua Alan Sturgill. All rights reserved.
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