Poem: En route – flexitime
Books & Poetry
Thoughts of shifting time, prompted by a crossing of the International Dateline, inspire this week’s Poet’s Corner contribution from a new travelogue poetry collection by Valerie Volk.
En route ‒ flexitime
It’s odd indeed
when travelling east
to find our certainties obscured.
Disoriented.
Judgment clouded.
It’s more than just
prescribed adjustment of our watches.
Something more basic.
We find how flawed
our sense of time becomes.
Disconcerting.
We fly towards the rising sun ‒
suddenly our sense of self
in time and space is gone.
It’s Monday noon we leave …
but then the disappearing day
relinquishes its hold
and we are plunged in night
that races through appointed hours
(how speedy Phoebus’ chariot)
until, as swiftly as it went,
the sun appears once more.
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But ah … We find that time has shifted.
By sleight of hand magicians might well envy
we have returned into the previous day;
it’s ours to live again.
A bonus, yes. How often
have I yearned for just this chance,
to live again an earlier day,
recapture joys of old. Or to repair
hurts that I’ve caused, redress
what damage I have done.
But this contrivance of the calendar
does not provide such chances.
It offers us instead new lands
to travel, new adventures
which beckon us to start.
Valerie Volk’s poem today is from ‘Of Llamas and Piranhas’, her new collection about travels to and through South America. She has published a number of other books and chapbooks that include poetry collections, verse novels and adaptive fiction which have been reviewed in InDaily and its predecessor The Independent Weekly, and details of which can be found here. She has been a past contributor to InDaily Poet’s Corner, along with various literary journals and anthologies. A former teacher, lecturer and education program director, Volk holds a PhD in Education Studies. Another poem from ‘Of Llamas and Piranhas’ will be featured in Poet’s Corner next week.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to poetscorner@solsticemedia.com.au. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.
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