I sit and meditate-my dog licks her paws
on the red-brown sofa
so many things somehow
it all is reduced to numbers letters figures
without faces or names only jagged lines
across the miles half-shadows
going into shadow-shadow then destruction the infinite light

here and there cannot be overcome
it is the first drop of ink


About this poem
"This is a poem from an unpublished collection, 'Back to Where I Belong.' Here I am interested in the new dominant discourse of surveillance and data where all other forms of identity are subordinate to it. Nevertheless, this top narrative tier is not exhaustive."
-Juan Felipe Herrera

About Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of "Senegal Taxi" (University of Arizona Press, 2013). He is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at the University of California, Riverside. Herrera lives in Fresno, Calif.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Juan Felipe Herrera. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate