Leaving

“. . .I know the contours of this room so well. . .”

Sarah Russell

First, thank you all!  In about 6 weeks, I have 107 followers.  Wow!  I don’t think my website had 107 views in the three years it was up.  Love this interactive format!

Now that Poetry Month is over, I’m going to start posting my own published poems, poems I run across that I admire, and reblogging other poems and flash fiction that I find.  Be sure to ask questions about the poems if you have them.  I won’t ever give my interpretation (that’s for you to decide) but I will tell you about the motivation for the poem (if I remember it…)

“Leaving” was published a few months ago in Poppy Road Review, one of my favorite  venues, edited by Sandy Benitez.  My previous post, “Family Photo, 1899” by Joan Colby was also published there.  Sandy is very kind to emerging poets as well as seasoned ones.  Follow the link at the bottom of the poem to see this beautiful site.

Leaving

The dimmer switch is canting down
and flowers on the table are in silhouette.
I know the contours of this room so well,
know the path across so I don’t stub my toe;
where one dining chair’s leg tangles
with another, mars in the untangling,
so I lift it up and over gently to sit down.
You want to push the toggle all the way
to dark, but let me have this twilight
’til my heart adjusts, OK?

– Sarah Russell
First published in Poppy Road Review
Photo by Niki Feijen for the Huffington Post

17 thoughts on “Leaving”

  2. You had me worried. Between the title and “First, thank you all,” I was afraid you were abandoning your blog, and I’ve really been enjoying it. Here’s to 100X those followers. Alarie

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    1. That’s funny, Alarie, because I had exactly the same thought just before I hit “publish.” I had wanted to thank everybody who gave me a “follow,” and I also wanted to highlight Sandy’s Poppy Road Review by putting a poem of mine after Joan’s and calling attention to her wonderful venue. But time was running out on my allotted computer time, and this one was ready to go, with a picture and everything (!), so expediency won out over hesitation. And thanks for the kudos. I’m having a lot of fun.

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  3. i thought the same thing at first, but was relieved to see you are staying. love this poem, it’s hard to adjust sometimes to changes in emotional connections –

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  4. Well, I wasn’t worried, as I recognized that good poem of yours by the title!
    Congratulations on your expanded following, Sarah. Well-deserved!

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  7. I’m glad you’re having such success here. I think I’m your only reader on Feedly, but really WordPress.com’s own reader is just about as good these days, and so convenient.

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  8. Still learning all the different platforms (is that what they’re called?). The one I can’t figure out is Blogger. I don’t know where to click to follow people there. And RSS feeds are a mystery. I think they are supposed to subscribe you to a website or blog, but they come up as a bunch of text that makes no sense on my screen. Catching on slowly. I get your Morning Porch everyday though, and that’s always worthwhile!

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    1. You can subscribe to a Blogger blog, or any other site with a RSS or Atom feed, through the WordPress.com reader. From the front page of WordPress.com, see where it says “Followed sites”? (At the top of the sidebar if you’re viewing the page on a laptop or desktop.) Click on the Manage button beside it. That will take you to a page where you can add sites just by pasting in the URL — if there’s a working feed, they’ll find it.

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