Linda Parsons Marion, Wanderlust

for Rachel

Already the world traveler, you were scuttled
down the Swansea coast with a swat of the Welsh
wind; in the London hostels you lived on
tins of beans and tomatoes, one eye peeled
for mice and thieves. That summer you shared
a flat with Scots and New Zealanders above
the chocolate shoppe, arranged lemon tarts
in their paper buntings for the festival goers,
Edinburgh’s midnight sun playing brilliantly on.

Soon you’ll be back on this green lap of land
called Tennessee; see how the hills curl at your ankles,
knowing your voice and smell? I would plant you
here, be taproot and rising sap, but you’ll tire of it all—
this inconsequential house and white rocker
stained with the milk of your sweet hunger,
the friends whose folded pictures you carried
on the Underground, hometown baggage
like the weight of a sinker, luring little
worth remembering.

In my mind, you say, I’m over there. Perhaps
you’ll move to New York or Charleston,
someplace not Knoxville, not here. Just when
your heels settle into the purple phlox
and the lilacs ripen, when home thrums
around you like a soft, steady rain,
the far distance opens its heaven.

Journeying, you are the only child
of cities and rural parts, daughter of cobbled
and crooked streets, no one to warn you
of lake’s shoulder, alley, uncovered well.
Born under the fierce bull, sign you will go
where you will, resist the ordinary world
until time to return. Until then, pack light,
intent on the song of here and there,

the rough seeds of becoming
tucked under your tongue.

Linda Parsons Marion is the poetry editor of Now and Then magazine. She has received two literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Tennessee Poetry Prize, and the Associated Writing Program's Intro Award. She is co-editor of All Around Us: Poems from the Valley. Her first book of poems, Home Fires, was published in 1997. Marion's poetry has appeared in The Georgia Review, Louisiana Literature, and The Iowa Review. She is an editor and policy analyst for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Linda Parsons Marion, Wanderlust

Spring 2002