Analogy 2006

It was April, 2006, another year of change and heartache.... I was leaving another long-term relationship and a culture born from another nationality.  I expected to be noticed, important, even cherished, and instead found a life of rush and hurry and disarray... rude remarks and indifference.  I was saving myself once more.... " falling out of love and back into my life."   It felt so good to get back to "me" and I thrived in my little house, my work, my writing, and my solitude.  The change is hard though, no matter what the relationship has been like.   I drew an analogy between my hiking trail and how this relationship had been.

Analogy, 2006

Down the bank towards the river, the trees are huddled

Grainy sands of snow sweep their branches that lay sleeping

Stillness hovers, just above the sounds of the river

The water stirs a chunky path of ice and mush and slushy dregs.

A hemlock tree stands shouldering the sifted weight of snow…

She shudders as she tries to sustain the tall, winter birch beside her

It seems that no matter how hard she tries, she cannot look up far enough!

He stands in high arrogance by her side, barely acknowledging

The fact that she is standing so close by his feet,

She wants to crawl up the height of him, until he can see her!

 But he does not, will not look down.

Today at the red light we each sat, waiting, you still pretending

To be oh so busy with something else, …anything to avoid the intimacy

Shuffling the papers beside you on the seat

Something else was very important, as usual

The light stayed red for an inordinately long time, waiting, like I was always waiting…

But I saw and felt that wooden stance melt as you remembered…

In the end, maybe you wish that you had taken the time

To  look down from your tower, that tall birch could have learned

How to reach for the hemlock, and make her feel needed.

Did you ever see how it might have been, if you had chosen to bend?

  

cailin raine