O Take Me

Some of my sonnets are not written rationally. It was not an easy autumn.

O take me where the Douglas firs don’t grow
In rows, but as they please. The roads will be
Awash and muddy now, but I’d still go.
As always when I fail, I long to see
The woodsmoke drifting from the chimney pipe
Above the cabin set amongst the trees;
Across the path, a dancing golden stripe
Of lamplight beckoning with warmth and peace.
O take me from this cold, uncompromising place
Built up with stone and weighted down with years.
Perhaps at home I’d rediscover grace
And find the heart to overcome these fears.
I’ve lost the sense of who I want to be.
O take me home, while there is still a me.

Technically, this sonnet uses the transition from octave to sestet to move from the dream, the longed-for forest (and this is a specific forest, with a specific cabin) back to the city where I live. Thus the pessimism – swap the order and make it present first, then dream, and the poem becomes much more imaginative, less dark.

I am a bit bothered by the false rhyme of “trees/peace”, but I’ll live with it.

Emotionally, the content is what it is. I love Edinburgh deeply, but sometimes I do get homesick.

7 thoughts on “O Take Me”

  1. Hi Abi,

    I read this on a day when I’m also feeling a little homesick. I guess it’s something that’ll always happen from time to time when you’re far from home 🙁

  2. “…sometimes I do get homesick…”

    So, not a chance in you-know-where that you’d move back to the Bay Area with hubby and the little ones?

  3. I’d just miss Europe if I did. A couple of quick swaps, a rebalancing of the sestet and octave, and I can be just as glum about the golden sandstone in the fading light of a Scottish evening.

    (And Dad should know about the old place missing me – he built that cabin.)

  4. Oh well… You should think about it for when global warming shuts down the Gulf Stream, thus making Europe a very chilly place to be.

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