homing
you always want to be lost
in tangled trails along the river,
travel snagged on scrawny poplars,
mud-ruts, overgrown green
bike tires doodling through
city parks and paths, tracing arabesques
in suburban warrens and cul-de-sacs
i couldn’t follow
even with my finger
greasing routes onto the map –
straight lines only in the track
of sweat sliding along your sideburn,
breath direct to lungs
no matter how you wind
you can’t shake your sense
of direction, homing strong –
eyelids lined with atlas pages,
flavour of north too large
for you to swallow
1 comment:
Hey Kerry--I like the idea of trying to lose oneself in nature but lacking the ability to actually be lost. I wondered if you couldn't link that sense of place with the man? Perhaps showing him as more grounded and of the earth? Or something along those lines?
While I understood what you were doing with these lines, I wasn't quite sure they worked for me:
"flavour of north too large
for you to swallow"
I thought you were suggesting that the man the narrator was referring to was trying to "eat up" the landscape, the miles, and yet it confused me that at the same time he's so at home in his place that he never gets lost?
Post a Comment