The A1 Verse: The widening circle

Every so often, a story published on the front page of the New York Times is so well written, meaningful, and appropriate to the Bulletin’s concerns that small snippets of it, properly chosen and arranged, produce something more than journalism, something that approaches … poetry. That blessed coincidence occurred May 17, 2021.

We suspect it’ll occur again.

Pandemic Sends New Faces Across U.S. Border

(from the original by Miriam Jordan)

Standing by the hulking border,
a bare hillock, a puddle
where the river trickles,
a gap in the rust-beam barrier.

The final leg of journeys,
dusty backpacks and dreams
of the unauthorized
across the vast border past.