Poem: June 14, 2019

The Runaways

Between the ages of twelve and twenty,
I constructed many fantasies with friends
in which we'd run away together, and,
like pioneers, create a new and private
life in faraway and bucolic lands. Maybe
we'd raise sheep and knit sweaters beside
the sea in Ireland, or buy some acreage
out west along a quiet tributary in some
valley only dirt roads could reach, and
we would see each other coming home
at sunset, a silhouette beyond the fence,
in overalls beneath a purple sky, and
we would find our places at night, making
music, creating artwork, or reading books
on the porches or in the barns. Away,
of course, away, and somehow making
good in a world we hadn't trained for,
safe beyond the safety of our homes,
keeping forever the company we kept.
But no one runs away like that, no one
breaks loose of their magnets, jumps
free of their path, and returns having
sailed a sea, climbed a mountain, found
Eden in Kashmir or in the hills of Italy.
No one comes back to tell that tale. If
they return at all, it's to recount how
dreams can fall apart, how sailboats sink
and sheep can stink and farming fields
is hard, so we all chose the paths most
traveled, safely within the borders of
the map beyond which there are monsters,
with lovely children and health insurance
and holidays off and single-family homes.
And rarely do we wonder, if at all, about
the few who left and who never returned.