Journey poem by Catherine Chandler

Catherine Chandler, trekking in Patagonia, January 2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm leaving today for South America, so I'll wind up my "journey"-themed poem sequence with one of my own, a villanelle, published in Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011).

¡ Hasta pronto !

Journey

 

by Catherine Chandler

We love the things we love for what they are. – Robert Frost, “Hyla Brook”

From Pennsylvania she has traveled far,
yet home is in the valley and the hills.
She loves the things she loves for what they are.

The watchful moon once tracked a Pullman car
past dingy culm banks and the linen mills
of Pennsylvania. She has traveled far

into the sunset, toward the evening star,
spent lavish pesos, pink two-dollar bills,
and loved. Some things she loves for where they are,

yearning, like dyads on a steel guitar,
for rivers, be they Canada’s, Brazil’s
or Pennsylvania’s. Though she’s traveled far,

she’s always thought in terms of au revoir,
a promise that (if dreams count) she fulfills.
Those souls she loved and loves know who they are,

and leaving them behind has left a scar,
a tolerance for pain and sleeping pills.
From Pennsylvania she has traveled far
and wide. She weeps, but loves things as they are.