Degrees of Glare by Cheryl Snell
Our pupils wince at the whole picture —
we need light bright enough to take it all in,
though we know too much reflection creates glare.
There is such a thing as an excess of light:
the halo of a stoplight in the twilit city,
the discomfort of a world of screens. Crystalline
lenses are veiled too soon, and the blinding light
that reflects off the land as your shadow pulls you
along a summer walk keeps you aware
that some pleasures simply glow─ the hills’ green
shoulder rolling toward night, the forest of sleep
cradling a small fire in its only clearing .
Cheryl Snell’s poetry collections include chapbooks from Finishing Line Press, Pudding House Publications, and Moira Books. Her work has been nominated seven times for the Pushcart and Best of the Net anthologies. Her latest novel, Kalpavriksha, is the final volume in her Bombay Trilogy, an epic about the South Indian diaspora. Recent poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Daily, Eunoia Review, Clementine Unbound, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, One Art, Words & Whispers, and GAS Journal.