Poetry Wednesday: "Marooned"

During the month of April, I got my contributor's copy of Slant, a journal which has published several poems of mine.  As usual, this year's issue did not disappoint.

This year, my poem "Marooned" appears in its pages.  In some ways, the theme is one that I return to over and over:  how different my life is from my ancestors, most of whom lived on farms all their lives.

I read the first person voice, and I recognize a younger me:  the one who ran miles before dawn, instead of limping around the house to get ready for spin class.  But at least I have a low impact exercise that I can do.

And I have never stolen fruit from a city park--but decades ago, on a visit to Florida, my parents did.  I was shocked--SHOCKED--to discover how they procured our grapefruit.  Now that I am older, I cherish my memory of my normally law abiding parents unable to resist the temptation of citrus fruits that just sat there on the trees, waiting for their liberation.

I am now old enough to know that the agricultural dreams of my youth won't work for me now. But that vision will always tug at me, even as I remember my grandmother admonishing me that I didn't know how good I have it, when I can go to Wal-Mart and buy a blanket for $6, instead of quilting one, that I can buy my chickens already slaughtered, plucked and butchered.


Marooned


We used to dream of returning
to the land
that our grandparents fought
so hard to escape.

Maybe we would harvest
Christmas trees. Maybe offer
goat cheese at trendy gourmet
shops. At the very least,
we would feed
ourselves with our garden and chickens.

Instead we harvest herbs.
We sneak into parks
at night and pluck citrus
from the city trees.

Like my ancestors, I rise
before dawn, the only time
for a run. I hear
the lonely chickens marooned
in city yards, marking
the dawn the way earlier generations did.

My grandparents greeted
daybreak by milking. I pour
cream into my coffee in a commuter’s
cup and instead of a tractor,
I drive to work, where I will plow
through e-mails and documents.