Posts Tagged ‘leaving home’
rafting event – what to carry when you leave home
A few years ago, I was thinking of writing a series of poems about plant pollination and dispersal. It seemed a great idea. Poems about bumble bees and butterflies, ultra-violet landing strips and hummingbirds. Poems about burr baskets, rafting events, maple samara and dandelion parachutists. I wrote the poem below and found it so depressing, I abandoned the project. Now, as I sort through my library and wonder which books to keep, the poem seems appropriate.
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rafting event – a type of biological dispersal that occurs when terrestrial organisms transfer from one land mass to another by way of a water crossing. Often this occurs via large rafts of floating vegetation, sometimes seen floating down major rivers in the tropics and washing out to sea, occasionally with animals trapped on them. (Source Wikipedia)
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rafting event
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Let the door handle slip
from your hand, leave
the home you’ve tried to know.
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Behind a deadpan face, dry tears
and palpitations, carry knowledge
away on a frail raft.
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Peterson Field Guides and Salinger,
a poem by Shelley,
three Shakespearean sonnets.
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They cling to the raft, these bits
of memory, rely on slippery
fronds of rough-glued vegetation.
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Recalled when someone asks
the writers you prefer or claim to have read.
You say, ‘the collected works of Heaney’.
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And is there an island where
new roots can catch and old seeds germinate?
The choice – survival or well-read.
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Hear the hinges do their work –
the dead bolt slips into the lock,
last home you will ever know.
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Copyright 2018
Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 