This place is your world. The shock of it – glaring, blaring, pungent, abrasive, all of it too sudden – drives me away again and again.
For you, I will always return, though I can’t say for how long. But I will never stay.
"5 minute walks"
by Jen Maidenberg
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Poems | England | Staffordshire | East Anglia | Northern Ireland | The Needwood Poems.
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Good, go away til next year, shoo! (Pretty sick of the old north wind. Totally done with him, for this year.)
Love the idea and the tale. Bravo.
Thank you. I should explain though that while I’m also sick of the North wind and it would make sense to read this piece in that light, I was hoping to refer here to the more abstract, un-wind-related meaning of “tramontane”: anything seen as foreign, strange, or even barbarous.
Some worlds are overwhelming! Nicely done.
Yes! Thank you.
I like the sacrifice inherent within these words. It is clearly a huge one!
Thank you!
I actually love how this can play on more than one meaning of “tramontane” (which I had to look up, by the way, so thank you). I can see the “other” blowing in and blowing out…
Also, “glaring, blaring, pungent, abrasive”–I see that big city which is exciting for a bit, then just overwhelming.
Thank you so much for reading so closely. You have it exactly! From the alienated person/figure who keeps returning, to the city (which can be a literal city or any kind of excessive existence – but I had a city in mind). It would even work as an alien in love with an earthling, though I never can write about that kind of thing successfully!
I know you could write successfully about alien/earthling love, IF you wanted to. 🙂
Well, thank you for the vote of confidence…and you’re probably right, it’s not really my inspiration 🙂
So many meanings…brilliant.