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Impermanence
Have I moved out?
My mother mourns for my childhood
when I was close at hand.
Close to her heart.
My books and artwork still decorate an empty room,
but they are non-essentials.
The important things
My clothes
My computer
Me
are gone.
I can't live where I hardly spend two weeks.
My birthplace is alien to me now.
I have left home, never to return,
but have I moved out?
The important things
My clothes
My computer
Me
are here.
In England I will stay until Christmas,
missing birthdays and Thanksgiving.
Separate from my family and familiar.
But I don't live here.
I camp out in reusable rooms.
A house, but not a home.
Where is my home?
I can't live where I hardly spend two weeks,
separate from my family and familiar.
There is no permanent address.
My residences are measured by semesters.
Fall
Spring
Summer
Migrating back and forth.
The important things
My clothes
My computer
Me
are moving.
I can see the future.
I know my address in the coming years.
Reunion drive.
Reunited with my family and familiar.
Summer vacation becomes relocation.
Unpacking my past into my husband's rooms.
Unpacking the important things.
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Region & Country
North Carolina, USA
Favorite Poets
Alfred Noyes, T. S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Seamus Heaney, Robert Herrick
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Comments
themoonman
Thu, 2017-10-12 07:50
Hi,
Great title, compelled me to read
the poem. I like your voice, fresh and
alive.
The repeated lines worked for me,
there is room for improvement, there
almost always is but I'm not sure how
in this case.
enjoyed the read, thanks for sharing
Geezer
Thu, 2017-10-12 08:49
It seems...
just a little bit discombobulated. I'm having trouble sorting out the logic. You say that you are having trouble in feeling connected to a place where you hardly spend two weeks. So I am guessing that you are speaking of home, but you say that you are separated from family and familiar. the last part leaves the biggest sense of WHAT? The moving into the husband's room's comes out of nowhere!
I think you need to look at the transition of moving a bit closer. I do like the theme and I see where you want to go with it, but hope that you might make it a little clearer to the reader. ~ Geezer.
.
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Osadolor Osayande
Fri, 2017-10-13 05:14
I am not exactly a fan of
I am not exactly a fan of overt poems but I think this one is awesome!!!! Well I might beg to disagree with what has been said about the logic being incomprehensible. It all flowed.
Unpacking my past into my husband's rooms... This struck me.
Osadolor Osayande
Fri, 2017-10-13 05:20
What I wanted to know about
What I wanted to know about the line UNLOCKING MY PAST INTO MY HUSBAND'S ROOM was this: Did you successfully overcome your longing for your pristine home, or did you reanimate it by making your present abode into what your past used to be?
Rhiannon1010
Fri, 2017-10-13 08:29
The latter.
Early in the poem I talk about feeling isolated from my family and familiar home, which are at the place I barely spend 2 weeks. By the end of the poem I feel that the people and place that I once considered my family and familiar home are no longer that. I feel that by returning to a place where I barely spend two weeks, I would separate myself from my new family and home. I can't return to my childhood or live with my parents now that I'm grown and have my own family.
Just to be clear, I'm not married yet. I am engaged, but the last stanza refers to the future. This is indicated by the phrase "the coming years."
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