A Poem a Day (634): NaPoWriMo Day 7 - Wish you were here

Day 7 

Prompt: write a poem titled Wish You Were Here, which takes its inspiration from the idea of a postcard. Consistent with the abbreviated format of a postcard, your poem should be short, and play with the idea of travel, distance, or sightseeing. www.napowrimo.net

 

Wish you were here

 

A red sky at night,

they say it’s shepherds’ delight,

this deep bleed into the black,

a bloody tide washing canvas,

dust trapped in the atmosphere.

It beckons a fair-weather day.

 

We drive the straight-line split

pounding this flat earth in two,

grassy mounds of lazy ground rising

into the tender bosom of a mother.

We listen to her soft heartbeat,

the thinking hum of the engine.

 

Ahead rear the barren peaks of Mars,

a craggy pink soaring barricade,

and we enter the deep-set gulch

into the unknown, the untouched,

or so I imagine, that is only for us,

this forever land we expect to find.

 

Our outgrown homes lay far behind,

the old lives, the traps we set ourselves,

the crazy rules we could never follow.

We ride high on our wanderlust

in the knowledge we don’t know where

we are heading or where we will stop.

 

There’s a postcard in my pocket,

waiting. Not knowing what to write

as a goodbye, I wrote nothing, but it burns.

I’ve rewritten it in my head over and over

a time, but just four words ring true:

wish you were here.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 7, 2024