Let’s go further into
this hard world
we’ve discovered. Take a left
turn into the wind
so our faces become flushed with cold
and the fun of the gamble.
If we were explorers this would be
the plunge over the falls
into a valley full of
anachronisms. We should
honor the stuck pig
on the stake up ahead,
a portent of what is to come,
our love a sacrifice to some god
known only to the desperate citizens
of this land. I’ll make maps and
build fires of palm fronds and old
soda bottles, you can weave traps
and skin the rats we’ll be living on
for our whole time here. Dirt poor and
stinking of fear and imagination,
we’ll establish a camp and fester
beyond the known ways,
and we’ll be legends elsewhere
for having gone somewhere unknown,
at least until the day we return.
No one will believe us then when we say
it was not horrible, not wonderful,
just another place like the one we came from,
full of people just like you except
we were the first to chart it and name it
and it was ours, all ours,
beloved homeland, found once and lost
and we do not speak of it often,
though the memory sustains us.
Dark Matter 
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I clicked on Feb 12 because that is my boyfriend’s birthday and thought it was kind of ironic that this poem showed up because this is pretty much how I feel. I like the concept of how love is a sacrifice but an adventure as well and that I can really relate to this.
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I’m glad it resonated for you! Thanks for commenting…
February 12th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
I’m good with you making maps, cuz I suck at that, but must I weave traps? And skin rats? I would much rather build fires. And gathering the stuff to burn in them sounds like fun, too. You’ll have to take care of the unpleasant necessities, because I can’t see beyond my romantic fantasies to even know what needs to be done! LOL
Seriously, though, I do like it. A thought- provoking concept.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Ummmm…ok. I’ll keep that in mind.
Thanks!
February 12th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I love the last paragraph, just love it. I read the poem three or four times, quickly and then slower and slower. It settles in a person. Pearl
February 12th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Thank you again, Pearl.