Traveling Light
I’m only leaving you
for a handful of days,
but it feels as though
I’ll be gone forever—
the way the door closes
behind me with such solidity,
the way my suitcase
carries everything
I’d need for an eternity
of traveling light.
I’ve left my hotel number
on your desk, instructions
about the dog
and heating dinner. But
like the weather front
they warn is on its way
with its switchblades
of wind and ice,
our lives have minds
of their own.
Hello Friends —
Sometimes when writing a poem, you discover the words have minds of their own. For me, the title poem from Linda Pastan‘s 2011 collection Traveling Light (2011) documents one of those moments of discovery. “For an eternity” and “traveling light” are two completely ordinary, everyday phrases we use when describing travel. And yet, when the two phrases are combined, they evoke an extra layer of imagery: in the context of “eternity,” “light” can also be read as a noun, as in rays of light traveling through the eternal blackness of outerspace — giving the reader a visual equivalent for what it feels like when “it feels as though / I’ll be gone forever.” When I get to that “traveling light” image in this poem, I feel a sudden joyful leaping out of the page, like I’ve just bounced on a trampoline that zoomed me from the tiny black of inked letters all the way out to the infinite blackness at the limits of outerspace, and then quickly back again — wheeee! — that delightful sensation of words becoming more than the sum of their parts, becoming poetry.
April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out one poem per day for the duration of the month. I love hearing when you love a poem, or hate a poem, or have a thought or a question about a poem — so please do hit reply, or leave a comment on the blog, meetmein811.blogspot.com. You are also welcome to nominate a poem or poet to be included. You can also learn more about National Poetry Month at www.poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets.
Enjoy.
Ellen