Grounded
Tell me I don’t reach
in the way that elm trees arch
for blue heated sky,
stretching with beggar limbs
for one more soak in yellowed light
before the moon hustles in
with the blackwash we call night.
Instead, tell me
you feel the stubborn way
I burrow beneath groomed grass
the same way elms seek water
reaching deep into musty earth
to battle the northern front.
First published in Hobble Creek Review
Where is the balance between reaching for something and staying rooted? If want is on one end of the scale and stay-put is on the other end, where is the balance and how do we recognize it? I wrote this poem a few years ago when I was thinking I shouldn't maybe reach for that blue sky. Jury is still out on that debate. And you? How is your jury doing on that debate? Or is it a debate for you?
It is very much a debate and I don't see that wanting and staying put are mutually exclusive. The wanting is not necessarily about moving, physically, away from where we are but growing upward, downward, outward from it...expanding. Oh, it is very much where I am. What I have come to recognize about myself is the difference between what I want being something within my power at least to initiate, something my effort may cause to happen, and wanting something to come to me from the outside world, a more passive situation. And I do still want both at times. I am not beyond believing in miracles. A tree would not talk itself out of growing. xo
ReplyDeleteStill and always reaching...the ground is itchy.
ReplyDeletemarylinn,
ReplyDeletecontrary components in life have always captured my attention. i agree, wanting and staying put don't need to be mutually exclusive (your post says it so well). oh, send me to my knees: " a tree would not talk itself out of growing"
rox,
see, there you go. i've missed you around here, m'lady. i forgot about the ground itch.