Back then, reading books everyone was reading: Rand,
Gibran, Hesse — imagining perfection, imagining that
misunderstood idealism was some kind of quiet
rebellion, a secret counterculture. Until it came apart.
First innocence was fractured. Like a faraway rumble.
A misheard oracle. The truth is not always true. Then
the heroes turned themselves inside out. This too was
endured like a blood-letting ritual. An inevitable rite of
passage. Home is a variable construct. The cracks grew
wider. And deeper. Till the pillars crashed. Till the roof
caved in. The bottom fell out. As if someone let go. As
if I had been holding on. You can lose what you never
had. How do you run away from a place you should be
running to? But this is an ordinary story. You grab your
dress above your knees and rush out against the wind.
You cauterize your wounds and brush reasons from
your hair when you fall. You tell yourself the swamp is
an open field. This is not a warrior-epic. You are a little
dog in a big dog fight, except the big dogs don’t even
know there is a fight. You can stay. But then you run.
A story in many unequal parts, some missing 
“First innocence was fractured.”….Piercing.
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“First innocence was fractured.” Piercing.
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Thanks so much, Sumana… 😍
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Remember reading Rand, Gibran and Hesse, and yes truth is not always the truth.
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Thank you, Madhuri. No internet then..a lot of our ideas came from what we read…good and bad!
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You are right, There was no internet, we read and Ayn Rand was one of my favourites.
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I really like the opening and ending stanzas. The narrator’s voice is so good here.
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Thanks so much! Glad you liked it.
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Oh yes, I too was one of the everyone reading those books then. What idealists we were!
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I re-read Hesse recently and “Narcissus and Goldmund” hit entirely different – like I was reading something new. The idealism of old simply doesn’t exist anymore!!!
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How interesting!
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I especially like the two closing stanzas. Awesome work.
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Thank you so much! Appreciate the support.
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Beautiful thinking.
Gibran was in my second wedding vows.
Rand wasn’t.
She sums up some,
of what is very wrong,
with the western world.
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Thanks so much, Cindy. Writers who left strong impressions indeed!
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So I’m reading these in order so that I can be caught up properly. I really like how much this piece feels like an expansion of the last one (explorations of the limits of words while still powerfully conveying an emotion). This one resonates with the prose lover in me and makes me think about the impressions stories made in me, for both good and bad.
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Totally totally appreciate you starting at the back and catching up on all of the parts. Thanks so much! From idealism that came from books to cynicism that came from life, it is the entire journey!!
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Back for another read. So many truths in this poem, italicized for added import. These poems chronicle an amazing journey.
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Thanks so much, Sherry. Appreciate you coming back to this poem.
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‘Home is a variable construct.’ – A lesson I have learned along the way!
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Good to have you reading this, Ingrid. Thanks so much!
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This Part is full of the turbulence and uncertainties of life change. Exposure to the forces. And yet the story seems to pull itself together from the staggering(?) uncertainties of the last Part. I absolutely love the line “You grab your dress above the knees and rush out against the wind.” Love it. The line is so visual, grounding and powerful. You rush into the story and take the reader with you.
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I started annotating some of the poems and in Note B (which you can find on the side bar) I’ve tried to explain how it was growing up back then in a very closed, conservative environment. The story then is one of unbelonging, at so many levels. Thanks so much for reading so closely and so well.
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