Friday, June 26, 2026: Jeanie Greensfelder’s "The Backward Glance"

 The Backward Glance

I look back at myself climbing the nine mile

Bright Angel trail out of the Grand Canyon:

Halfway, she runs out of water, and must

panhandle sips from passing hikers,

then pours trickles over her hot head.

I love this woman who never hiked,

who practiced for months, who learned

she could helicopter out only if she broke

her leg, who learned too late she could

have sent her belongings on a mule.

She lightened her load carrying less water,

causing problems for herself and friend.

I love that woman with all her foibles

I reach for her, want to hold her,

but, like Eurydice, she’s gone.

 

© Jeanie Greensfelder

Bio: Jeanie Greensfelder’s poems have been published at American Life in Poetry, Writer’s Almanac, and as a Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day; in anthologies: Paris, Etc., Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems; in journals: Miramar, Thema, Askew, Persimmon Tree, and others. She served as San Luis Obispo County poet laureate, 2017,18. A Pushcart nominee, Jeanie’s books are: Biting the Apple, Marriage and Other Leaps of Faith, I Got What I Came For, and Time Traveler.   jeaniegreensfelder.com