Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Journey

   
    “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

SOURCE

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”__ Anna Quindlin, How Reading Changed My Life

       Midweek Motif ~ Journey

Not a single atom in this universe is without a journey. Everything around you including yourself is a wayfarer. Each moment is a journey enriching us with experience.

Share with us those invaluable moments about your tour, trek, voyage, safari, pilgrimage or you might even recount your inner journey.

Even if you are a stay-at-home kind you might open your eyes to the exciting, adventurous, arduous and even traumatic journeys that are taking place all around us and write on any one of them.

A few poems for you:

Up-Hill

by Christina Rosetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 

   Yes, to the very end. 

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? 

   From morn to night, my friend. 

But is there for the night a resting-place? 

   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 

May not the darkness hide it from my face? 

   You cannot miss that inn. 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? 

   Those who have gone before. 

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? 

   They will not keep you standing at that door. 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? 

   Of labour you shall find the sum. 

Will there be beds for me and all who seek? 

   Yea, beds for all who come.

The Addict

by Anne Sexton

Sleepmonger,

deathmonger,

with capsules in my palms each night,

eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles

I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.

I'm the queen of this condition.

I'm an expert on making the trip

and now they say I'm an addict.

Now they ask why.

WHY!       

Don't they know that I promised to die!

I'm keeping in practice.

I'm merely staying in shape.

The pills are a mother, but better,

every color and as good as sour balls.

I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit

it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-

blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,

hauled away by the pink, the orange,

the green and the white goodnights.

I'm becoming something of a chemical

mixture.

that's it!

My supply

of tablets

has got to last for years and years.

I like them more than I like me.

It's a kind of marriage.

It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside

of myself.

Yes

I try

to kill myself in small amounts,

an innocuous occupation.

Actually I'm hung up on it.

But remember I don't make too much noise.

And frankly no one has to lug me out

and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.

I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie

eating my eight loaves in a row

and in a certain order as in

the laying on of hands

or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony

but like any other sport

it's full of rules.

It's like a musical tennis match where

my mouth keeps catching the ball.

Then I lie on; my altar

elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is

with two pink, two orange,

two green, two white goodnights.

Fee-fi-fo-fum-

Now I'm borrowed.

Now I'm numb.

Provisions

by Margaret Atwood

What should we have taken

with us? We never could decide

on that; or what to wear,

or at what time of

year we should make the journey

So here we are in thin

raincoats and rubber boots

On the disastrous ice, the wind rising

Nothing in our pockets

But a pencil stub, two oranges

Four Toronto streetcar tickets

and an elastic band holding a bundle

of small white filing cards

printed with important facts.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

               

Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~  Saints