THE IMPORTANCE OF HALFWAY

Used to be the inn between two towns,
the place to rest when the journey was long,
and now it’s a house for a stay before
returning to normal life. When a journey
seems too long to complete, we break it into
segments, halfway becoming the goal

to render the rest feasible, a psychology
to trick ourselves into thinking that the whole
is achievable. Still, the rest is also a trek,
its halfway point becoming the next marker,
and so on, each remaining part only
half the last. We never make it to the end,

so the mathematical conundrum goes,
the fallacy in logic that each portion takes
the same time. As parents, we keep
telling our children they are halfway there,
wherever there might actually be
in that moment. For us, if that spot is where

we feel adjusted to our life situation,
the end state may not be obvious or desirable,
the ultimate target elusive, uncertainty
all but certain. Of one thing we can be sure—
at some point, we will find ourselves
halfway to our demise, just never know when.

PARHELION

When he said its name, the more common
      one, I thought of Aten or Ra, mythology

learned long ago, but no, he said, not god,
      but dog, so I dispatched Zeus walking his,

and suppressed my overall dislike of dogs
      unleashed on the paths I walk, those signs

denying their rights the owners claim,
      but not that type of dog, he said, instead

the kind revealed to him when he and his
      mother marveled at the sky one evening,

happenstance she said, clouds found 22°
      aslant from the setting sun, a bright spot

in his day, rainbow colored, as if another
      sun had suddenly been born, the sundog.

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Jim Tilley has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Billy Collins selected his poem, On the Art of Patience, to win Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024.

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