Sri Lanka* (Poem 292)

Serendipity: a silly schoolgirl dream

      to leave the pitted streets and

Ruled lines of my home, 

Intimately known through years

      of delicate fingering and tasting, 

Lingering like a deer at the 

      lapping edge of the floodwaters 

      of 

Awareness, 

Never veering from the course I set    

      before I was me, 

      before I knew the searing 

Kiln of age 

      firing my bones, 

      the chill of condensation settling 

      like a scarf around my ankles,    

      almost (but never quite) 

      far enough

Away.

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six

*In response to an exercise suggested by Poet Carolyne Wright at a workshop in Auburn, Wa.