Camping Trip
We know it's time
to get away. The house
has become our cave
and the world has narrowed
to its opening. Everything
is too well known, too same,
too taken for granted,
has impressed the patterns
of our days.
We've become obsessed
with small things and
the continuous damage
living is.
We've repaired nicks
in the walls and furniture
and tried to mend relationships
that have rusted and snapped
and we know there's never
any going back, just walking
backwards, the lack of
seeing that only brings
more broken things.
We'll make a camping trip
to the Southwest where
the land reveals an ancientness,
strange rock formations, fossils,
corals from an inland sea,
old cultures not immediately
apparent but still present
in ritual and spirit, concealed
in cave and canyon.
We pack the camper: food,
blankets, clothes, books,
computers, maps, cameras,
flashlights for desert nights,
sunscreen, lotion for insect bites.
We leave our home behind
with its nagging memories.
(from Camping Trip, Green Fuse Press, 2009)
