Flying to Denver
"Somewhere, you are home. You are a point of light."
Here and there a town, but mainly constellations of lights; Farms, houses on the dark would-be sky, ocean of prairie, slow winding patterns of white pins. A river flows silver, upstream. The texture thickens to scar tissue, the face of an old burn over the lower range; earth rising into static gray waves. Somewhere, you are home. You are a point of light. Your hands against the kitchen towel, into the cabinets. And your face, though I can't see it. Me and the moon. We're almost over you tonight, but not quite. How often do I think of it? Only with the cabin lights off. Like this. And when I do, I remember you in blue.
* Note: Normally, I would let the poem speak for itself, but in this case, I don’t feel like leaving well enough alone.
I wrote this poem in college, nearly 20 years ago. I’ve pulled it out of the drawer a few times since then and tinkered, removed or added words, but it is essentially the same poem I wrote at eighteen, one late night while flying from Rapid City to Denver.
I haven’t published any poetry since college because I haven’t written any since then. And I’ve been thinking about that lately. I would like to re-train my mind for poetry. (If you’ve written poetry, you know what I mean. It’s an entirely different mode of thinking.) But a blank page is so daunting. So far, I can only begin by returning to the place I left off and starting to tinker again.
Who knows what will come of it? Still, I have hopes for the new year. And I’m curious to know if anyone has been through something similar… TM*
Most of my published writing is my body of twenty (so far!) middle grade and young adult novels of mystery, suspense, ghosts, and time travel. I've had some essays and articles published in magazines over the years . . . but I've never really tried poetry. Until just a couple weeks ago! I've been teaching a First Year Writing course to my college students this semester in a departure from Creative Writing, and I thought that along with trying their hand at research papers, persuasive writing and narrative essays, we would try poetry. I had them pick one of their earlier assignments for the course and turn it into both a series of Haiku AND a Shakespearean sonnet. Astonishing results! (Imagine a sonnet about Blockchain...and Haiku about public art installations...). I wrote right along with them, and enjoyed the challenge. So much fun!
Your poem is beautiful and moving. Especially "You are a point of light."