Poem Before Departure

by Jean Burdeu
Winter 1962
First Prize Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards 1963

This place moves from me like a slow tide pulling out against the moon.
It does not matter if I push up earth against the door,
or turn the key within the lock;
even as I lean,
the tree trembles in the wood,
the pebble flies within the rock.

Or if I stay like a crouched animal within,
I watch the walls move back, grow membrane thin;
leaves sprayed against the pane blur a little at the edge;
vines pale and loosen on the sill.

It does not matter that I prop beneath the knob tables, chairs.
Something recedes that once was still;
what was mobile, stares.

The time is soon though I, longing to be caught by root or weed,
resist departure as a kind of death.

Something began and ended here.
One morning, whether I dare or do not dare,
I shall look up, unroofed to sky;
I shall gaze through timber
that I once leaned my fear against, and knock on air.



Spirit of Flight by Josephine Wall