National Poetry Month - Day 27: Jefferson Hansen

Red Shift

"a shift in the spectrum of a celestial object toward longer wavelengths caused by the object's movement away from the viewer."


your distance was at first violet
and it made you
alluring, always teetering
between tangible or tantalizing

then you sped
to indigo or blue
looking back only
furtively

you turned from me and I ran
but you moved much more quickly
you became green then yellow
and orange

I was afraid for you

then
you flared red for
a singular moment
and disappeared

I ran after
expecting the colors
around me
to change
but they remained
--

from Lyrical Eddies: poems after the music of marilyn crispell (Anomaly Press, 2005)