Sunday, March 05, 2023

a soft time machine


as a child I imagined freedom being a wandering
far bells ringing alone, a-lone, a-lone
to begin building my wings 

in this day so crystalline it could tell my future 
I am drawn into the warmth of dawn 
unpin myself, go on alone

presence tightens inside me, its slow summons 
keeping hold of the cold, consents to soften
all the tall, twice-built walls



Pic: A snowy Red Cedar River on a snowy birthday walk by myself 3/4/2023.

8 comments:

Nicole said...

Gorgeous, both the poem and the photo.

StephLove said...

"Unpin" is a good word.

maya said...

Thank you, friends!
StephLove--what does it conjure for you? (Although I've never done it, it reminds me of the way insects are pinned and mounted.)

StephLove said...

I took it to mean untether, but the image I had was more of hair being unpinned and falling free.

Sarah said...

I, too, think of hair when I read unpin-- an excellent word.

maya said...

I love unpin as in hair, StephLove and Sarah. I'm adding it to my collection of associations. I also think of it as the opposite of "pinning" as in going steady. I think I got this from _The Bell Jar_ a long time ago and it never left me.

StephLove said...

There's laundry, too, as in unpinning clothes from a line. I dry about half our laundry outside year round and putting it up and taking it down is one of my favorite chores.

maya said...

StephLove, I really love this "unpinning"--I think it's my favorite because of the way clothes bear some semblance of the humans who wear them...

I'm so impressed with your year-round laundry line!

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