The Art of Leaving

This post is dedicated to Brittany and Daniel, my comrades in arms and the best friends a person could have. Among the strange things we do on our nights together is a poetry game in which we fill a white board with random words. Sometimes there is a theme, such as words that sound sharp, dark, sensual, light, or earthy. Then we start a tape recorder and take turns spouting off random nonsense using the words on the board as inspiration, sometimes with funny accents as if playing a part in a movie, sometimes rhythmically as if performing slam poetry, sometimes we even sing. It is a creative exercise, the joining together of random components to spark inspiration from unlikely juxtapositions. The following poem was written primarily using phrases spoken or sung during the whiteboard game. 

The Art of Leaving 

To you,

my tribe of see-through souls

who drive me to the airport 

at 3am

The anchors at the end of my kite string.

You,

my pack of existential vagabonds

Flying with abandon 

up mountainsides

down rabbit holes

In pursuit of sacred truth. 

Together 

We bear that inner cross

The albatross

The weight and truth of living

Yet our laughter rises light

To carry footprint sorrows 

Off with the tide.

No distance I could walk 

Would bring my heart

Or mind

Closer to that of another,

Then what distance could divide us? 

The bond of siamese hearts, 

inoperable.

The coordinates we share:

The moon, the stars

That pinprick dusted dawn of 

A co-created universe, 

A trembling ether

Of rhapsody and joy.

And we aspire to the thrones 

Of the heaven we are building

The unshakable image 

That dances through our day-dreamt trance.

And as long as that sky stands, 

You shall know my absence 

isn’t but to fetch the wood 

For the scaffolding

And weave the baskets

That shall hold your golden gifts.

For what we seek does not lie at our feet

But hidden in the maps 

And foreign streets. 

What craft will you have found

When I return? 

What meditative armor will we add 

To the arsenal for peace? 

Will the challenges that scar us

Carve a deeper space for love?

And in the stillness of the midnight hour

When sparrows sing among the thrush

And you wonder at your loneliness, 

And fear a faded time 

has ravaged youthful dreams…

Remember dawn is coming, friends

born of fire from your hands,

And soon I’ll stand beside you

To light sunrise once again. 

xoxo,

Dana