Ode to the Real World
To stay at home hiding from the plague
I moved inside my body and its mind
swapping the tangible for the untouchable
holed up in the house, retrenched in the brain
the sky in the window sucked of color
thought and feeling reduced to nouns.
My soul began to suffocate
then burst through claustrophobia.
I left the city of abandoned ghosts
the gray and humdrum artifice
seeking natural hues of light
native color on a human scale.
The bumpy road to change unfurled.
Houses and storefronts skidded by
gave way to pastures gaining green.
Incredulous cows stared back until
from one hilltop on Tomales Point
both beach and bay were gilt with sun.
Coyote bush and gnarly oak
grew by marshes near the inlet.
A herd of twenty tule elk
raised their doe eyes when spotted.
The elk had almost gone extinct but
rebounded to roam and rut and render
the barks and bugles that called to me.
I sang The original world’s still here.
Imprinting the elks’ curve and sway
I stored the sight and feel of the real.
If a tree falls and no one is there
to hear it, yes, it roars through the forest.
Back home, this vision sustains me still–
the memory of chlorophyllic ridges
the sky blue of a child’s paintbox
pooling in the long arm of the sea
the white spray smear above the beach
the tawny torsos of the elk lifting
their dark heads from the stippled hills.
This poem was published in San Pedro River Review, and is from the chapbook Crosswalks by Jan Seagrave (Finishing Line Press): https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/crosswalks-by-jan-seagrave/
Jan Seagrave‘s poems have been published in national and international journals and in a number of regional and local anthologies. Crosswalks is her debut poetry collection. Jan was a Pushcart Prize nominee and Blue Light Press Chapbook Competition finalist. She was born in Virginia, educated in philosophy and theology, and has worked as a writer, storyteller, and librarian. She lives in the northern San Francisco Bay Area in a neighborhood with redwoods and coast live oaks. She lived due north of San Francisco Bay for over three decades, and now resides in Ventura, CA.
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