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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Reading Myself Home




Home for me has always been
Walled in dusty book jackets,
Captured on musty yellowing pages.
I leapt through the looking glass
With Alice, finding a kindred spirit
In search of escape to a happier land.
I spent hours in the garret
Sitting next to Jo as we both
Dreamed our literary dreams.
I stood beside Dorothy
On her tentative first steps
Down the yellow brick road.
I chased penguins through the basement
And jumped through sidewalk drawings.
I juggled a fish, a dish, a cake, and a rake
With Sally and Conrad on a rainy afternoon.
I searched the back of the wardrobe
Looking for a magical passage,
Seeking an audience with Aslan.
Even as an adult I still check
Each dewy morning spider web
For a friendly message from yesterday,
Knowing that whenever I feel
The urge to travel back home,
I only need turn the page.


~~~ This poem was written for a prompt offered up over at Poetic Bloomings asking us to write a poem about home.  Also linked up for Open Link Monday over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

How I would like to get a message on a spider web. Shades of Charlotte. Lovely poem. k.

Dave King said...

I enjoyed this very much, its many hints of believable magic. Excellent.

Mary said...

Mary, you don't know how much I love this poem! Its concept and the way you expressed it. It is wonderful when 'home' can be anywhere as long as you have a book!

Anonymous said...

Home in the stories, very nice. So many of these have moved out of 'popularity' that my children may never discover them. Sad

kaykuala said...

A wonderful companion it had always been, a book! But wait up! The iPad, tablet and even a touchscreen cell phone are now spoilers! Great write, Mary!

Hank

Marian said...

Conrad! how did you know that's his name?!

Mary B. Mansfield said...

LOL, I'll admit I pulled Conrad's name from the live-action movie, thought is sounded better in the line instead of "Sally and her brother."

Abin Chakraborty said...

excellent juggling of authors and texts...and very true for many of us.kudos!

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Fantastic! I , too, have made many journeys between the covers of a book.....still traveling!

Laura said...

I love this... it takes me back through time (and books) and very happy memories. Thank you.

Maude Lynn said...

I love the part about checking spider webs for messages. Lovely piece!

Mary Ann Potter said...

This book lover loved your poem!!!

Scarlet said...

The pages hold a lot of magic and adventures ...we can travel surely with just these books ~

PattiKen said...

This is delightful. Books open wonderful portals though the looking glass or wardrobe or any other place we might wish to go. (As I child, I loved The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm, about the princesses who escaped through a trap door in their bedroom floor to dance the night away.) One could never ask for a better place to call home than a book.

Herotomost said...

This is a place where most of us writers have visited and considered never leaving. And pulling Conrad out like that....brilliant, I have never seen the movie so I was amazed at your magic. I'm always amazed at your magic.

Hannah said...

This is perfection!! I love what you've done here!! I think this should be posted in ALL libraries! So very comforting.

" spent hours in the garret
Sitting next to Jo as we both
Dreamed our literary dreams. "

I did, too! :)

Unknown said...

Lost in the wordform and our imagination :)

Susan said...

"Home for me has always been / walled in dusty book jackets" --- How wonderful! Mine too! And then as you continue in short vignettes, I see the books in order on the shelves. This poem seems personal because I know all of the books (and I am writing a semi-autobiographical one now called "Alice in Wonder"). It is a gift to record for the younger generations what we loved, and its only answer is a poem full of the younger generations' answers, like vampires and avengers. Golly. I am adding this poem to the list I have of poems I cannot live without.

Mystic_Mom said...

Me too! Me too! This is home, my books and I...love this!

Unknown said...

Aren't we readers lucky creatures? How can one not be?

Margaret said...

This is pure delight! I printed it out and stuck it in the cover of Charlottes Web ;) the first book I read aloud to my first little boy almost 18 years ago when he was two!

Really, this is splendid.