They were daily wear, no little luxuries, these. Found at the ladies shop on Ingram Street, the hole-in-the-wall tea retailer, the tights department at M&S, all things from one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five ordinary, extraordinary, rainy, windy, fascinating, boring, lonely, average days… days enshrined in a long stretches of weeks, five years worth of a life somewhere in a place I once called home. Whether sleeves of biscuits or boxes of tea, brands of hot sauce, scratchy tweed hats or lengths of woolen plaid, I kept Scotland in my hands, next to my skin, inside my pores, under my breath, and it never let me feel too far away, never let me regret the difficulty, never let me leave it alone as I learned to disconnect and resettle my heart to the rhythm of the state where I was born, let my skin revert to desert air from constant rain and mist, let my eyes learn to linger on gold instead of endless shades of green… Home wasn’t so far away, after all, as long as the post still ran, shipping me my daily wear turned little luxuries. My tea. My tights. My sleeves of biscuits. My heart.
So many sorries
My emails drip with regrets
like cracked tea kettles
Empathy spreads across miles
From strangers being human.
How have I missed these? Are you posting on IG?
I love the image you’ve created to go with your poem. These lines are so moving:
“I kept Scotland in my hands,” and “Home wasn’t so far away, after all.”
@MissRumphius:Oh, Jeez, no – I don’t put poetry on IG very often. These feel a little too unfinished (and I’m still so new to haibun). Also, sometimes I’m very blue when I write these, and I don’t want to depress anyone. My goal is to come out on the side of a positive, but – I really don’t know where I’m going to end up, so I thought to err on the side of caution. I’ll put this one up for PF, though. Thank you for your kind words.
Not commenting every day, but I’m reading and loving these jewels. And your graphic…YES.
@MaryLee: Same! There’s just too many to comment on, but I am reading and enjoying. The graphic comes from Library of Congress Flikr photos – I figured I should get a head start on looking at stills for our end-of-the-month challenge so did a bit of collage. I’m going to try and do a new one each week – there are SO many glorious images.