CHARLENE LANGFUR

Like I Belong Somewhere

 

This is how it is for me now then. Walking matters. And breathing
deep. And looking at the stars in the sky before morning. Always
I’ve had to dig in deeper than others. Maybe you have too. Touching the
points between this and that, day and night. And always I want to be
right and do right even when there is no such place where right is. Only
ground and distance and maybe a poem, one the same as a map
with blue rivers and green sycamores on it. Without this, an idea of a place,
what do we have? Soil so fertile you can grow anything in it. Maybe that.
A sweet pea garden, with sunflowers. Protein rich beans, food growing up
poles. Nothing better than that. My grandmother was a farmer, from Prague.
She grew old, she never gave up. Of course I have no land of my own
now. Few of us do. But the flowers around us count, seeds, bees carrying
pollen. We can protect what is, what is possible for this is how I plant
myself in a world, try to stand fast but at the same time, making room
for passersby whether they do the same for me or not. Memories
become time before you know it, don’t they? The rest
is carrying water. Sorting through dreams. Landing safe.

 

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