Sky reflected in water. Beaver Brook, New Hampshire July 2017
I've been thinking, lately, of the meaning of home and the nostalgic memories we have of childhood. This poem, like the picture, is a reflection.
Impossible Light
The geography of home
holds the soft topography of undulating hills,
is reflected in clouds playing hide and seek with sun
in water so blue it strikes the heart.
The smell of pine is sweet in the green yard where you skipped rope
and the treehouse where you told your secrets to the wind.
There is the doorway where your mother called your name,
the garden where daisies and roses grew in midday sun.
At least, this is what you remember.
The maps of your memory have been washed over by the salt of your life
until they are diaphanous and shiny.
You’ve packed and unpacked a thousand suitcases to find that country again,
a place that says to you, ‘this is what you are looking for’
The land that eludes you is fragile as the scent of winter.
it wafts past like the ghost of those you knew--
those red warm faces gathered by a fire,
their bell like laughter an echo.
You’ll go all the way to where the landscape dissolves to a vanishing point
to find it again.
And all the while it remains just beyond the reach of your feet,
the impossible light you search.
.
The geography of home
holds the soft topography of undulating hills,
is reflected in clouds playing hide and seek with sun
in water so blue it strikes the heart.
The smell of pine is sweet in the green yard where you skipped rope
and the treehouse where you told your secrets to the wind.
There is the doorway where your mother called your name,
the garden where daisies and roses grew in midday sun.
At least, this is what you remember.
The maps of your memory have been washed over by the salt of your life
until they are diaphanous and shiny.
You’ve packed and unpacked a thousand suitcases to find that country again,
a place that says to you, ‘this is what you are looking for’
The land that eludes you is fragile as the scent of winter.
it wafts past like the ghost of those you knew--
those red warm faces gathered by a fire,
their bell like laughter an echo.
You’ll go all the way to where the landscape dissolves to a vanishing point
to find it again.
And all the while it remains just beyond the reach of your feet,
the impossible light you search.
.
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