Here and There

Once in a poetry workshop we had to incorporate the first line of three different poems into a poem of our own. The lines I chose were by James Wright, May Swenson, and A. C. Swinburne. They are italicized in order by poet in this week's blog.



Here and There


Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota
snow lies thick on the open landscape
like a scene from Dr. Zhivago
with its feeling of disquiet for both
the main character and me.
He absorbed in thought, traveling by horse,
me driving a car distractedly,
neither of us close to home.
Sweeping stretches of whitewash
flow over the Siberian steppe, but here
fenced farmland defines parcels of property
wrapped in winter.
Rag of black, shred of kite
caught on barbed wire to my right
wave stiff in the wind
like the Hammer and Sickle
on the Red Army train detaining him.
State Patrol cars carry no flags
but lights and sirens stir concerns
as it pulls me off the unfamiliar road.
Pasternak's protagonist, myself
released with stern warnings,
me about my speeding, him about his life.
Alone again in the countryside I witness
boxcars behind a black engine
roar past, the dregs of the day drifting
in behind. I blink my eyes, and the crimson
end lights on the last car disappear,
and I am back in rural America
here, where the world is quiet.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor