I wept for two months
after coming back from Australia.
How could I live without
the water (the water, the water), the sand,
the sky so much brighter there,
without sunrises on the beach
without toes in the sand?
I researched visas and special job skills list,
wondered if I could pass as a structural engineer,
wondered if I could pass as a Youth on Holiday.
My shrink didn't think moving there
would actually solve anything.
But he'd never been there -
how could he know
about the alien trees, the parrots in the wild,
the surfer boys out on endless waves?
So I get out.
But I only make it
a few hundred miles
in the direction of Down Under.
A pitiful compromise, paradise postponed.
Then I wake up this morning,
walk out to the water
past a purple tree raining blossoms
as the sun paints the clouds orange.
Sink my heels in the night-cooled sand,
watch seagulls surfing the waves.
I lean down to touch a shell
and find Australia.
2 comments:
I really like this Polly. Starts out with weeping but by the 3rd stanza I was grinning (about the shrink)...about striking out in the right direction - felt like a triumphant but mysterious ending.
You cd probably trim the pitiful compromise, paradise postponed. Maybe say more about those few hundred miles instead...like the ending. Also how the first and last lines echo one another but are opposite in meaning & emotion.
Another full circle, another interesting ending :)
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