Progress by John Hicks

A small shadow inquires morning light

onto the cushion of the wicker chair. 

     I trace it to the chair’s arm. 

Longer than its name, a green inchworm,

slender as a pencil lead.  Like the pencil,

     it’s movement that matters. 

After bringing his trailing end

up to the advance, he pauses

     to test the air, bobs and turns and bobs.  

The pencil’s sharper end doing math,

multiplying, left, then right, up, then down,

     short strokes appraise a predefined world. 

No poet this—though with bad eyesight

and curious about the larger world.

     But how can we not love inquiry? 

While the rear legs hold the tail end fast

it conquers the world in its inches. 

     Progress is stepping out. 

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John Hicks is a New Mexico poet: has been published by: South Florida Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Bangor Literary Journal, Verse-Virtual, Blue Nib, Poetica Review, and others. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Nebraska – Omaha, and writes in the thin mountain air of the southern Rockies.