This past month, my family and I moved for the fifth time in less than five years: that’s six houses in five towns in two states (not including the short interlude at a Michigan commune after a permanent evacuation from a wildfire, but that’s a whole other story.) While normal families take annual vacations, we wind down and unload life’s stresses by packing/unpacking house and spending a frenetic couple of days making sure that year’s toddler doesn’t fall off the Uhaul ramp.
Needless to say, ‘moving’ has been a thorn-in-the-side kind of pain that has overshadowed any mental or social growth in this season of life. Or, I wonder, is it a blessing in disguise to get a small feel for what the hundreds of millions of refugees and migrant workers scattered throughout the earth go through for a much more extended time and with amplified persecution and hardship? Is it perhaps a good thing to ponder movement of human beings, why we go, and what we use for fuel.
Time to Fly
Ruth Padel
You go because you heard a cuckoo call. You go because
you’ve met someone, you made a vow, there are no more
grasshoppers. You go because the cold is coming, spring
is coming, soldiers are coming: plague, flood, an ice age,
a new religion, a new idea. You go because the world rotates,
because the world is changing and you’ve lost the key.
You go because you have the kingdom of heaven in your heart.
And the kingdom of hell has taken over someone else’s heart.
You go because you have magnetite in your brain, thorax, tips
of your teeth. Because there’s food over the hill
and there’ll be gold, or more likely bauxite,
inside the hill. You go because your mother is dying
and only you can bring her the apples of the Hesperides.
You go because you need work.
You go because astrologers say so. Because the sea
is calling and your best friend bought a motorbike
in America last year. You go because the streets are paved
with gold and your father went when he was your age.
You go because you have seventeen children and the Lord will provide;
because your sixteen brothers have parcelled up the land
and there’s none left for you. You go because the waters are rising,
an ice sheet is melting, the rivers are dry
there are no more fish in the sea. You go because God
has given you a sign – you had a dream – the potatoes are blighted.
Because it is too hot, too cold, you are on a quest for knowledge
and knowledge is always beyond. You go because it’s destiny,
because Pharoah won’t let you light candles at sundown on Friday.
Because you’re looking for
an enchanted lake, the meaning of life, a tall tree to nest in.
You go because travel is holy, because your body
is wired to go, you’d have a quite different body and different brain
if you were the sort of bird that stayed. You go
because you can’t pay the rent: creditors lie in wait for your children
after school. You go because Pharoah has hogged the oil,
electricity and paraffin so all you have on your table
are candles, when you can get them.
You go because there’s nothing left to hope for;
because there’s everything to hope for and all life is risk.
You go because someone put the evil eye on you
and barometric pressure is dropping. You go because
you can’t cope with your gift – other people can’t cope with your gift –
you have no gift and the barbarians are after you.
You go because the barbarians are gone, Herod
has turned off the internet and mobile phones, the modem
is useless and the eagles are coming. You go because the eagles
have died off with the vultures and the ancestors are angry
there’s no one to clean the bones. You go in peace, you go in war.
Someone has offered you a job. You go because your dog
is going too. Because the Grand Vizier sent paramilitaries to your house last night
you have to go quick and leave the dog behind.
You go because you’ve eaten the dog and that’s it, there’s nothing else.
You go because you’ve given up and might as well. Because your love
is dead – because she laughed at you; because she’s coming with you,
it will be a big adventure and you’ll live happily ever after.
You go in hope, in faith, in haste, high spirits, deep sorrow, deep
snow, deep shit and without question.
You pause halfway to stoke up on Omega 3 and horseshoe crabs.
You go for phosphorus, myrtle-berries, salt. You go for oil
and pepper. It was your father’s dying wish.
You go from pole to pole, you go because you can,
you have no feet, you sleep and mate on the wing.
Because you need a place to shed your skin
in safety. You go with a thousand questions but you are growing up,
growing old, moving on. Say goodbye to the might-have-beens –
you can’t step into the same river twice.
You go because hope, need and escape
are names for the same god. You go because life
is sweet, life is cheap, life is flux
and you can’t take it with you. You go because you’re alive,
because you’re dying, maybe dead already. You go because you must.
[Source: migrationmuseum.org]
To think of the earth as a living creature teeming with billions of propagating microorganisms (us), perhaps the only way to maintain health and sustainability is for there to be proper flow. Like air, blood, water, regeneration, qi, prana, life, love, spirit. And yes: migration. To stagnate is to die. Yet, there comes a day when those laissez faire metaphors will no longer serve as kinetic energy for one’s life, having been replaced magically, mystically by a new axiom of the power of earth and root, by the virtue of stillness.
Two Voices in a Meadow
Richard Wilbur
A Milkweed
Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.
What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.
A Stone
As casual as cow-dung
Under the crib of God,
I lie where chance would have me,
Up to the ears in sod.
Why should I move? To move
Befits a light desire.
The sill of Heaven would founder,
Did such as I aspire.
[Source: The New Yorker, August 17, 1957]
Tonight, as we congregate here at the pub from all virtual corners of the world, let us consider movement among the population as a whole, or even just among ourselves by asking, Where am I going and where have I been? What is the trajectory of my life? We can also explore motion in an abstract way by using tempo in our poetry.
Post a poem to your blog, link it up below, and let’s get moving!
That first poem by Ruth Padel grew on me so much last night while contemplating this prompt as I wrote it out verbatim. It is the story of my life, and maybe of us all in a way. The line breaks were speaking to me, as in there being no rhyme or reason, but moving along randomly, trying something new just as there starts to be a rhythm.
So here I am, poets. Taking a break from the beach to move and groove with you!
Thank you for hosting Amaya. Always nice to see your name. I will wrap myself around this.
Good to see you Rob — enjoying the summer, I hope!
Enjoying it very much. Thank you! Sounds like you’ve been active! Hope all is well… 🙂
Hi Amaya and All. Good prompt with a lot of possibilities. Will be back later with a poem.
Great, Jade, see you soon! I originally thought I’d write about mass migration, but my poem took a turn when I really started getting into it. Yes, so many possibilities!
Hi Amaya! Thank you for the wonderful prompt and poems for reading. I can relate to the topic in my personal life.
I never thought too highly of stability. Arrogance of youth, and all that. But I didn’t realize being physically stable would also support my spiritual foundation. Maybe I’m wrong and this is just my karma (necessary for me to learn) but it sure is wearying. I am looking forward to your contribution:)
Hello Amaya, Thanks so much for hosting and sharing these lovely poems! I hope you are getting settled into your new home.
We moved in and then we’re like, Peace out, we need a vacation!
I love this prompt, Amaya: the poems, the artwork, and the inspiration. Thanks for hosting!
I love these poems too. I think for the past ten years I was more into mystic and conversion themes, but now I’m drawn to place and home.
Thanks for hosting, Amaya! I’ve added a dizain about walking, a slow movement.
I’ve always felt the slower you move, the more you live. Not necessarily longer, but more in depth, you know? Ha. You know. I bet you do taichi too:)
Amaya – the “moonlit lake” link was in error. Please remove it for me — sorry!
✔️
Oh I love that first poem! Thanks for hosting, Amaya. 🗺
powerful poignant poems … this topic resonates deeply Amaya as I’ve been nomadic since my teens and only just putting down roots now … those poor migrants have little choice!
Having moved home 34 times in 49 years, around the world, I can relate. I have had 41 homes in 69 years. As a child I would regularly re-arrange my room because then it felt like a new room. I must have known. 🙂
Great prompt, Amaya! It must be stressful to move so often. Sometimes I’ve a notion to live somewhere new but you can’t easily move a farm…or a farmer 🙂
Rob, I left a comment for you on your page but it isn’t showing up. Your poem really spoke to me, as I’ve been wandering pretty aimlessly this last year since retiring. It hasn’t served me well…
This poem by Ruth Padel is amazing, Amaya, and your story is touching as well. What an excellent topic. Would that more people in the U.S.A. had empathy for the reason these people are leaving their homes..and more of a realization that they must have somewhere to go.
Ruth Padel’s poem is powerful (they’re both powerful). I swear that poets could save the world, if we’d listen to them.
Thank you for hosting here Amaya and sharing the wonderful poems and artwork. The prompt took me in a different direction, following the earth’s movements through time and I wonder how much of this lives on inside us too xxx
Hey all participants, thank you for being here but it is going to take me awhile to get to reading your entries and responding. It’s an incredibly busy week on vacation with in-laws and my mother, and it’s also my daughter’s birthday. Sorry for the delay but I promise to get there eventually!
Good Afternoon, Poets! Thanks, Amaya, for the nostolgic prompt! I’m coming in under the wire with a personal history of moving! 🙂
Thank you for this, Amaya. your blog is one i feel real fortunate to have discovered, and i’ll surely be sticking around.
Amaya, thank you for that first poem and for this thought provoking theme. I look forward to reading what others have shared on this topic.