Graduation March

Aged out, taken up residence

in a cottage in a field.

These familiar lands

Look more like stranger tides,

As time laps away my ease.

The world stands so still

I thought their was no air left to fill

My lungs. The maroon tassel,

Frozen in my peripheral,

The cap and cloak’s stare, disappearing into the horizon.

A sharp shift in the wind sends

Saw-toothed blades of grass swinging in the wind,

Slicing away chips of the cinder block foundation.

The land beneath my feet is unstable,

Rolling in rocky waves of increasing size.

The cap and cloak hover in place.

I’m carried to the door frame by waves of dirt and stone.

The earth beats against the four walls, smashing in the windows,

Sinking my home into the ground. I’d lived here for centuries.

Now, I’m fashioning my luggage into a raft.

Gritty grains of rocky dust

Splash into my eyes.

I do not see the tsunami approach.

I only see its patchy green, tree topped crest.

My cap and cloak still hover in place, when the largest wave breaks.

I now sail atop the greenery,

Seeing remnants of my home in the surrounding sea

Of earthen, unforgiving majesty. I see folks around me

Living comfortably. They’d known to prepare for the storm.

Who would I be to think like them?

I’ll use this time to transform.

Let the Earth carry me to new fields,

As my memories replay forlorn.

At the dawning of every new day, I’ll map the land that scorns.

I won’t conform, I won’t live easy.

I’ll struggle until my biography:

My Trip Across Uncertainty.