a blog by Miriam Jessie Fisher

This is a piece I wrote as part of a conference in a creative writing session. I’ve been reflecting on it as I prepare to share some thoughts on stitching and pilgrimage at a conference soon.

you

solitary

against the wind

through God-only-knows storms

propelled by the thinnest of structures

overlaid with feathers

of all the ridiculous and unlikely things

feathers and bone, that is not bone,

cartilage

easily dried to brittle in the sun

you travel

nowhere to land

just sky

and sea

and the odd silver sliver of a meal

and freezing feet beneath the water

if you want to rest

no company

just blue and silver

and the eternal horizon of

clouds and white tipped waves

I wonder what destination calls

implicit in your cells

why you would set out at all

what an incomprehensible notion

adventure

true north

compulsion

would open your expansive wings

to the lift and drag of winds

to follow currents

you, harbinger of pilgrimage

scaling the wide arc of coastline

bi-cultural

belonging here

belonging somewhere else

at home above the blue void

of landless ocean

your call catches

sticky at the back of my throat

I know it as vocation

a voice that calls across the wilderness

the voice,

that calls me into the unfolding blue

of moana

that says, set out

launch

lift up your sails

to the unseen wind

plunge into the unknown

the voice cries, insistent

true north awaits

out there

I keep going doggedly

dejectedly

long after

sense would call me back

long after

hope has become a whisper

whipped away across the waves

long before

before the coastline arises hopeful

I have chosen my course

I cannot return

I doubt

my flimsy framework

frailty of feathers

I know

my own lack of all that is necessary

I set out