PETER BALAKIAN: Pace and Tempo

You wake to a slat of light

sound of dogs barking in the warm air

the nothing that surrounds you is

far and near from the bombing in another country.

Not far from the dictator who wants to take

over your own country—nor from the brush

strokes you called up last night

from a still-life with oranges that you bit into

in thin air over the balcony looking out at the Hudson.

Riparius: flow from the source down a long

basin into the ocean beyond your body. You see

what you can and what you can— you take in—

to let go—- as your eye marks the horizon—

the moment    the flow goes back in

to— you—- and that ebb that is always

— on its way.

This poem appeared in Plume

Peter Balakian is the author of 9 books of poems including Ozone Journal which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry; his recent book of poems is New York Trilogy (University of Chicago Press, 2025). He teaches at Colgate University