Member Poem

Orbit - By Diane Severson

Home has always had the comfortable pull of gravity.
When I was small I ran in circles
From Living Room through Dining Room
To Kitchen and on again.
The origin of my flight and orbit.
Observe the lumps to prove my bumpy take-off.
Home was a welcome constant -
The point from which my outward spiral began.
The tap, tap, tapping of her typing
And the tinkling of her piano playing
Was a comfort as I drifted off
To sleep preparing for what came next.
With lift-off came revolutions
Around town and then country.
Even traversing the water
Could not sever or break
The tether, proving it robust.
The pull of Home was steady
And so required the occasional return
Of the prodigal daughter.
I was not long enough in any one place
To call another Home.

She is letting go of the house now.
A heaviness of loss
Is jumbled with a lightness
Of being cut loose.
Where will Home be now?
She is free now to reposition
Her own orbit around my big, beloved brother
Whose own focal point long shifted long ago,
He is warm and welcoming.
But my new trajectory,
Is a sudden, unfamiliar straight line,
I’m flung outward and away.
Where will it lead?
What new center will be found?
Will its pull of gravity be strong enough?
I hold still and open my senses, hoping I might
Hear that tapping, that tinkling.
But I realize what I’m hearing
Is a pitter-pattering and
My apprehension is relieved.
I’ve found an axis to revolve around.
And as I spiral in once more
I settle into its enveloping gravitation
And find I’m settling in around
Myself, my family. Home at last.

previously published in Mystic Nebula, 2013 (a now defunct web magazine)