Ostranenie
Stare at any one thing
long enough
it recedes into form
without meaning.
Roof edge beyond the window
becomes a floating angle, abstract
against cloud-clotted background,
rain layered foreground.
Say anything over and over,
word you love or word you loathe
it reduces to sound,
to nonsense.
As a meditation,
this nudges us
closer to edges,
toward wilder realms rarely visited.
But be wary of ideas
ranted over and over.
They lose something too,
lose the softness of grass on bare feet,
of hand touching hand. They become
strictures against the way rain speaks,
barriers to what nourishes
the ground we are.
Laura Grace Weldon
First published in Sisyphus Literary Magazine, issue 6.3
“Ostranenie” is a literary term coined by Russian writer and critic Viktor Shklovsky to describe how art takes reality out of context, making the ordinary seem strange.
Laura Grace Weldon 
Of course you’re Ohio Poet of the Year. Beautiful.
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Well… poems begget poems…
The universe is change and, if we tarry too long in place or state of mind, we lose synchrony with the eb and flow or our voyage through inexistent time. The mere suggestion of climate change as something new is quagmire. We are like a caterpillar struggling to avert bursting at it’s seems; unwary of the wings that grow within. And yet, as we tarry in fear of the unknow, the very motive of our fear is upon us, and will not linger in days of old. Now’s the time for wings to unfold. Now’s the time to fly to places untold. “The ground we are” lies below and grows diffuse as we soar above.
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I love the simple wisdom in this.
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Beautiful.
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