We’re All Trying to Get Back Home

We’re all trying to get back home, even if we have never been there before.

Rob Merritt

11/5/11

Distant Shores: a Poem about Our Hearts and Memory

I.

Distant shores elongate in a pose

a clock stands still

as decades from long ago sweep across my face

a wrinkle in the corner of my eye holds a memory

II.

people from our past creep in like marbles on a tile floor

spreading across our hearts like a surf wide angle lens

a frame circles a dot in a tiny box in a room from far away

the lens captures the crevices that donate a sweeping song

over the senses to someone’s soul

deep and uncovered

a blanket lifted to the moon

underneath are the hearts that beat

from this shore to the next

III.

the people we let in and out of our tiny boxed hearts

are bigger than the space we allow them to exist in

so they manifest into giant sequoias

that boast ballerinas

dancing in time cloaks from yesteryear

there they dance

and twirl into magnificent muses

tucked in our tiny pocketed hearts

bleeding onto the distant shores with their surf wide angle lens

Cliffs of Dover in Dover, England — Summer 2014

Cliffs of Dover in Dover, England

I wrote “Distant Shores” on MySpace.  Is MySpace even in business anymore?  Thought I would share it since it is National Poetry Month.

bleeding

a frame

Red Socked Toes

Death moves

slowing in

a nursing home

creeping softly

with red

socked toes

jutting

out of opened

doors

Hunched over

in wheelchairs

waiting for

something

death could

be more exciting

than the actual wait

sitting here with Betty

and a nameless

old lady

I asked her

her name

her matted

pink gums

holding in

her smile.

I wrote this poem May 28, 2011 while I was visiting my mother in a nursing home. She has since passed away. I found a notebook titled “Light” and decided to share since it’s National Poetry Month.