Once upon a winter…

 I have taken this photograph (of the friendly seagulls) in Chestertown, Maryland a few years back during my high-winter visit to the Great Oak Manor Inn.  As for the poem below, I wrote it under the spell of my entire experience there.

hours of road monotony

the GPS – self-imposed dictatorship

tired, bored, no more beauty in the snow

then…

a private gateway,

a much anticipated spectacle:

The Inn.

A compelling magnificence.

No need for a color, shade, or a hue;

a winter embrace of splendor;

the smolder of her fireplace…

 

I feel  home.

 

Spacious beyond the eye’s territory,

not at all an inn of limits;  

high-risers’ luxury at hand;

many may deem impersonal,

out of futile habit: This, a B&B?

 

I feel home.

 

Eloquent, the host – the hostess, of elegance.

The puppy acts like one yet outsizes me.

Struck by grave illness, the eldest feline

each night in my Victorian space.

She, too, will break hearts, never to replace the pieces.

Just like my Russian Blue, Duman.

A mere three days’ span…

listening

inhaling

seeing

the authentic self

outside its tested and testing

fragmented, fragmenting

judged, judging

rushed, rushing

shell-self.

 

I am home.