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.
hülyaswritings 