Returning Home

[Guitar's Cry]

RETURNING HOME

I found a feather returning home today.
It was snowy, tinged with black on one side.
I held it against the leaden sky
And kept it because I couldn’t bear leaving it for the rain
To clump the follicles together and ruin the silken beauty.

So I carried it across the grassy hillside and down my sandy driveway,
But it fell before I opened the door.
Perhaps it didn’t like the way I twirled it between my thumb and finger,
Or maybe it simply didn’t want to go inside
Where the sun and sky are boxed in.

Either way, I left it to be rained upon, or blown by the wind.
Maybe it will be crushed by the tires of a guest.
I would have lost it at some point, or stepped on it accidentally.
Such small things tend to be forgotten.
So I left it there by my door in the sand to return home.

[Sunstone]

I think, on first reading this, that there is a wonderful interplay in this poem between the fickleness of our interest in living and the iron inevitability of our "returning home".

I enjoy this poem in so many ways. Frubals to you GC! Post more!

[Guitar's Cry]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

I think, on first reading this, that there is a wonderful interplay in this poem between the fickleness of our interest in living and the iron inevitability of our "returning home".

I enjoy this poem in so many ways. Frubals to you GC! Post more!

Thanks! You made my night!

I like your interpretation. That's exactly what I was going for. The feather was also symbolic of unbridled imagination, and how we lose our imaginative wonder in the habits of everyday living.

[Sunstone]

A "snowy feather tinged with black" --- isn't that great foreshadowing! We know then we're looking at something delicate and mortal.

[Guitar's Cry]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

A "snowy feather tinged with black" --- isn't that great foreshadowing! We know then we're looking at something delicate and mortal.

"I held it against the leaden sky" is also meant in much the same way. That the feather is a tool of birds to soar through the sky - above the ground that they must return to - conveys that "inevitability of returning home" that you spoke of earlier. The sky is leaden (heavy in more than one sense), and the feather is no longer a physical vehicle of flight, but a symbolic vehicle of deeper meaning to the narrator.

Again, thanks for the interest in my work! Do you also write poetry Sunstone?

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by GC

Do you also write poetry Sunstone?

Yes. If you're interested, check back two or three pages in this poetry forum and I think you might find some things I've posted.