Filed by Lance at 2:07 pm under General

So here’s a little bit of a departure. I’m breaking my (unintentional) several month silence by posting a poem I’m working on. If you’ve got ideas or comments, I’d love to hear ‘em: post as a comment or e-mail me. Here it comes after the jump!

“Something Unexpected”

On the coast of south Rhode Island
on a farm down by the sea
grew up a woman whom I loved
when we met in Chicago.

She would tease me that my Lake
dreamed of growing up to be an ocean,
and I explained to her in protest,

“Where my home the prairie meets the Lake
and farms give way to water,
Midwest tectonic plates collide
driving up the steel Everests
of our accomplishment.

“We are surrounded by land
which is always something different
and always searches for something new.
Where we stand was once
a forest, glacier, desert, prairie,
now a city named for wild onions.

“An ocean is an ocean
(more or less)
and only vary in their size
but the Lake will always be
and will become something
unexpected.”

She didn’t believe me, and continued
teasing me. I teased her back.

I loved her like I knew her all my life,
coming from where farm gives way to water
I loved her as the great accomplishment
of the Atlantic.

I loved her for the children that she wanted,
for the life she wanted always
searching for something new,
loved her for the children she would have
with her when she danced with Chinese actors
or vacationed in the Azores during winter
for how she made me feel
that I could give her something new:
that I could be the steady love of rolling prairies
and the simultaneously unexpected discovery
of glass and steel rising out of farmland.

Instead of me, she chose the man
who drove her out to find
a prairie firmament, and so
I left her to her ocean
gave up her life of something new,
the accomplishment of the Atlantic,
because an ocean is an ocean
(more or less)
and only vary in their size
but you and I, my Lake
will be
something unexpected.