Portals to Freedom


Security line snakes
People curling up inside
Life forces draining through soles shuffling forward
Onward
Bound for somewhere
But first and second
another numbered gate
Bitterness settles in the crook in my shoulder
Burdened by sagging strap
Levity hanging by a thread
A movement catches my attention
high above
Sparrow trapped and circling
Compassion blooms
Softening the defeated curvature of spine and bone
Here this small bird
Scraps aplenty on the floor
But no sky to soar aloft
It will be stuck here
I’ll be home soon I whisper
Spread my feet
Feel the pats down my boots and motorcycle jeans
Smile into the security guards eye
A bird is only truly free in flight
Or is that just a human projection?

*hold on to your spirits tail and it will carry you free ..

I am home, I love this road. I run or walk down it almost every morning when I am here, my face turned to the rising sun. In the evening the sky is ablaze with colour, the power poles silhouetted like sinners searching for redemption from their crosses.

I have a thousand photos in my phone of it:

And yet, I haven’t resettled. I am like the sparrow searching for an exit that exists inside the morass of memory and experience, a portal through which I left weeks ago and now can’t find a way to re-enter.

My entire body is still in that odd place betwixt and between. This morning I rode my motorbike and it feels odd, heavy, cumbersome, after the light agility of the postie bike. It revved and huffed and hurtled – the throttle pressure is different. It cut out entirely as I descended through the gears!on my way home, my back wheel skidded as I snicked it into neutral under travel and restarted it before braking. Sticky fuel perhaps – I’ll have to take it to the mechanic next week.

Sigh.

All that is required is time.

And enough hasn’t passed by yet.

I’ll keep searching.

14 thoughts on “Portals to Freedom

    • Yes, drop the fuel out I think. I just didn’t like the way it stopped at 60 clicks and in third – wouldn’t like that on the highway 😬 I’ll run it past the bike shop on Monday for a tune and reboot – the brain maps whatever we use as an extension to us and after ten days straight on the smaller machine mine is still attuned to a different beast 😊

  1. this is a poem about being boxed in too and the compassion for all those that are; thankfully the Gaza impasse seems to have lifted; go for a god ‘burn’ and you’ll feel better —

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