Monday, August 13, 2012

The Road Home

In the map
in my mind
I see the road home,
above the loch
towards the Narrows
where the Atlantic rushed in
and flooded the shoreline,
then sucked back out
as though some invisible
plug had been pulled.
Currents spinning
seals swimming
silver glint of salmon.

On the other hand
the old stone walls
darned with moss
and lichen
and lacy ferns.
Following the contours,
curvaceous,
solid, ancient.

Memories of the past ricochet
in the alcoves of my mind
where the maps remain
even when the image
dwindles
and fades to just a smell
of bog myrtle
and the sound of an oyster catcher
lamenting
on the shoreline.

9 comments:

  1. Oh Veronica, I love this piece. I've read it three times and bookmarked it. A strong sense of place comes through, and I can almost feel the ocean's mist hanging on the air as I read. Bravo!
    Brenda

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  2. I don't believe that I have liked one the Wordle posts, ever since I began reading and writing them, any more than I love this beautiful poem. It sings to me of Scotland (especially it echoes the memories of our youngest son who had the privilege to visit there and fall in love with the country of his ancestry (Calhoun))

    What a brilliant use of the tricky words - I shall be hard-pressed to be even half as successful in incorporating them into my attempt at this one.

    Also, thank you again for your suggestion on my #68. It is a tremendous help - and pointed out to me something that I should have caught from the get-go! Guess I was in too much of a hurry!

    Congrats again and thank you for this gorgeous poem, which I have printed out and am saving, and I' am also sending a copy to my son!

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    1. Wow! Thank you for your enthusiasm :). My childhood memories are much stronger than any other ones...

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  3. It's amazing how smells can trigger memories isn't it? I love your wordle.

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  4. Having moved much as a child, and being 'here' for the last 20 or so years, I think my place memories of home will be with the smell of damp earth from the rain, creek water, pine and the summer floral of milkweed and butterfly bushes and home grown tomatoes...enchanting.

    I'm here:
    http://julesgemsandstuff.blogspot.com/2012/08/sw-69-acheron-9-for-both-b.html

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  5. One image above all rivets my attention: "darned with moss."

    Exquisite!

    Another Whirl with Robert Hass

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  6. Veronica, I concur with all of the above. There is something symphonic and moving within your words.

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  7. Thank you every one for your kind comments. It is so encouraging to get feed back. :)

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  8. To answer some of your questions...I started writing two different sets of fantasy story verse, mostly using Wordles. On my Blogspot site there are two pages with these stories in more or less 'make sense' order (not always date written order). A and B merge with Number 9 (the 9th piece of both), with the Sunday Whirl #69's world list. Sorry for the confusion of tense - but sometimes it works. Anyway, briefly the wizard was away from one kingdom, being distracted by 'Mme Curvaceous lace covered body in another town - she is minor (well at this point anyway), which gave Here-boy (wizards' slave labor) a chance to set a magic spell book 'free'. Here-boy has his own verse - in the poem called 'Sorcery' the second piece in story verse A. Enjoy. Oh I peaked in at your other site. Interesting building - are you going to live in it?
    (Blogspot doesn't alert you to follow-up replies like Wordpress, so that's why I came here to answer your questions. You don't have to print this reply :) or you can delete it if it prints.

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