Journey Around

by Caroline Crumpacker

The present continuous is a trying tense for many people.
My friend from Germany says I go now   when she is ready to leave.

There is no pith like an Au Revoir is there?

We are not dashing through the present   any longer. We need it whole.

It’s that kind of a time.

I keep thinking of A Journey Around My Room
written by a man on house arrest following a duel.
He wears elegant traveling clothes to visit different parts of his room
            assigning each its own  elaborate   psychogeography .

Should we take up the game    ?
I wear huge pearls  for   the realms and eras  
of my bedroom this evening.  The storied  surface of   my  desk.
My favorite book.   Something I wrote on Facebook   immortalized
and   I wear the pearl of Lao Tzu     or did I just read about it. .

I tell my friend it’s that kind of a time and we exchange thoughts on sorrow
but not sorrow itself    unless mirror neurons work  online .   Do they ?

I read that hunters a few States over    fearing an
increase in wildlife protections   kill hundreds of wolves  at once.
As if cruelty is   becoming condensed.

I arrive in the kitchen enthralled 
the coffees and teas and jars of spices. 

I think about the Persian soup  that is said to change lives. 
Though everything changes lives  these days.

I read the world needs a shutdown every two years
to reach modest climate goals.
It’s a good time    for the planet
  when we are  reduced   to an essence
  wandering our rooms for adventure.

Each rug each  pillow     as in  going a little mad
  doubling and trebling our images on  screen.

I read that  a new level of blue is created
ultramarine   twilight   I wear Bulgarian Rose  in its honor  .
  Or did I just read about  the fabled roses  that smell of cinnamon
  the  orchard near the   troubled  border  line  deep in the woods
      crawling with ghosts  .

My Swedish bookshelves  a fable of simplicity  and bright showrooms.

Somewhere along the way  I come upon a sequel,
  The Nocturnal Journey Around My Room
  apparently just  as witty  and disturbing
            but
           who can bear it? 

Caroline Crumpacker is a poet and translator living in the Hudson Valley. She has one book (Astrobolism, Belladonna Collaborative) and three chapbooks and is a contributing editor to Matters of Feminist Practice. Art by Karyn Kloumann, founder of award-winning indie publisher Nauset Press.