TFE's Monday Poetry Challenge


in which we write poems based on photographs that Totalfeckineejit has posted here.

I chose Photograph #2 from The Poetry Bus part deux. It reminded me of two things: my love of the ocean -- no, my love of being near the ocean -- and the photograph of a field in Saskatchewan that I took not long ago. Oh, and it also reminded me of a song. I'll put the song at the end of the post, though, so as to end on a beautiful note.

Meanwhile, the poem. I've called it

grasshopper

How do they do it, the ones whose lives
plod like yoked oxen from cradle to grave?
An earthy furrow holds no charm;
its walls hide the sky and drown the sun.
Its way is straight, its end ordained.

I prefer to follow a winding path,
a way that forgets its beginning
but knows that all the possible paths,
whether arrow straight or serpentine,
come to the same inglorious end.

"Of course," exemplary ox reminds me,
"You'll never get a crop that way,"
and he has a point, there. Yes, he does.
There are no bulging barns
along my road, no winter stores --

But my path - my winding path
might take me anywhere, before it ends,
even on wings to the fiery sun,
or to the salt water's edge
and the deep comfort of the sea.