Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Galleon on the Mantle

The mantle sits in the center of our home,
between the kitchen and television: the spiritual core;
The altar in a bachelor temple; where in December,
stockings would hang if we were a family.

On the mantle is a pile of National Geographics from the 1980’s
filled with pictures thumbed through impatiently on indoor days,
a dieing formerly pink rose whose countenance is downcast,
and a thrift-store treasure: four mast wooden galleon, with bow facing out.

If the ship turns out to be enchanted, most thrift-store galleons are,
when the faery-winds change the ship will leap from it’s mount and begin
its voyage; over the flat-screen television playing season after season of
AMC’s Breaking Bad, round the rhododendron sentry outside the window,

through the Burrard Inlet, up and over mountain after mountain,
and on through oceans of flat in Canada’s belly. The sailors will sing
songs of faery-wives and children in tiny artic cottages
waiting around fireplaces glowing with green pixie-flames.

When the winds change the faery-ship crew will be dispersed
across North America; amongst the disparate places they’re from.
Soon enough the mantle will be bare, the ship will be empty,
and this house will not be our home.

1 comment:

Bethany said...

This is fantastic! I love this poem! Well done Jake!