Blue

She had a blue life.
In summer when the sky was blue,
Halcyon and soft, she sat like a swan
in the grass.
Everywhere she went, the same.
Skies arching forever.

But one morning, with a split second
decision, the tempo changed. It happened this way:
an argument, or a flower falling, and she
decided to burn
up all her money, and possibly
herself, in pursuit of
Blue. She sought out trains.

They had sleeping berths.
They had corridors.
Men and women left their shoes on floors,
their bags half undone.

In the hallways, in the berths,
the smells drifted,
making everything feel
musty, dirty and untended.

No matter. When sleeping
she dreamt of blue Venice,
of the rivers like great moving muscles
running ahead and onwards.
Blue Paris too would have its perfect skies,
its impossible clouds and moods.

Dreams are always too perfect in the mind
for the moment of departure to not be a sudden
shock of the real.

 

Rachel Bell has "been writing poetry since one morning riding through a long city on a bus & thinking of bees, age fourteen, I realized that I could because I could. A feeling which like the moon waxes and wanes. Have come to realize that Writer's Block is more like Writer's Change of Direction, or Writer's Fork in the Road. Live in Tel Aviv a city which once was mysterious and so dark to walk across, now familiar to the extent that I have forgotten how to be in love with it". Her poetry and short stories published at/in One Fell Swoop, Vibrations, Aubade, "The Poetry Ring", Neiderngasse, The Poet's Cut, Poetry Tonight, and next year in the Penwood Review.