“Songs of Change” PART 3

“What was that?” I wondered, looking over my shoulder in the pitch-black room. 

“It’s part of it, you’ll see,” my mother whispered. 

I gripped my knees tightly, as if they might float away. I wasn’t going anywhere, I had decided. Not until the lights came around again. I squeezed my eyes shut as much as I could without completely blocking out the scene. I had to be on the lookout, always on the lookout. Always leaving room for that sliver of light to wiggle its way in. 

A sudden swell of magic came over me. Flutes fluttered on the wind of cellos and were rolled in by the tympani that introduced the scattering of stars above us. The darkness became beautiful. And thus, began our show at the planetarium on my 3rd grade field trip to the science museum. 

When I think of wonderment, that’s the moment I think of.

What’s your moment?

This was the feeling I wanted to capture for my closing poem. The whole scene —the anticipation, the fear, the holding on, and the dream that starts to realize— is the wonderment that comes from pursuing change. 

So, here we are at the first line. I want to embody the moment those planetarium stars swooped across the ceiling. What would that be like in real life (plus a little magic, of course)? Well the first thing I think of when I imagine a clear night is a field. But this scene is not still —I need it to be interactive. Sweeping. No. Comforting. Like a blanket:

Pull the fields above me 

Now I’ve got an image of me pulling this warm, cozy field over me, but we need to set the sky. When I’m there, in the golden comfort, and I imagine the perfect sky, what color is it? What color would be the most beautiful for a night scene against gold? Purple. Since we’ve already used “pull” as our starter, using “perfect” and “purple” will make for great alliteration. We’ll keep it simple:

Perfect purple sky

What lives in our sky? Stars, yes. But what else? What do the stars make up? And what would we see on our perfect star-gazing night? Two things came to mind: Constellations and shooting stars. But they don’t quite fit. I want this world to be more ethereal. It represents our dreams, after all. What would it look like if those constellations came to life? If a shooting star was alive? I’m imagining a fish in the sky, a world where there are just as many possibilities above as below. Where you can look up and see every creature our ocean holds and more. I chose a salmon as my subject, since they represent strength, freedom, and abundance. I want us to see this mystical creature flying over us at a cresting moment: midnight:

Peaking in the twilight

A salmon swimming high

Our eyes are twinkling, cuddling up in this sweet oasis. We wish we could live here forever, in this dream. But we can’t. How do we relay that? What if we tried to swim with the salmon? What if we tried to fit into a role not meant for us? We would lose ourselves in the process: 

Lose myself to become what 

I could be if I tried 

To swim there too 

So, back to our fields we go. Grounding, once again. It’s a delicate balance, the pull between dreams and reality. Sometimes we can become so rigid in our goals, too sensible. It’s awful, really. What reminds us to be gentle with ourselves while also encouraging freedom and youthful zeal? Butterflies. And the serendipity has arrived in that there is a butterfly called the Monarch butterfly. Monarch: a classic ruler, overthinker, stresser, no fun at all. Moments like this make years of writing what feels like nonsense worth it: 

Flutters on my fingers 

From the butterfly 

Monarch in my thinking 

I love this, but I want to introduce a glimpse into the loss of this confidence —of the butterfly. What hurts the butterfly? When you touch its wings:

Touch my wings, 

forget to fly 

Wrapping things up, we’ve arrived at the last stanza. I don’t want to stay in this place of flightlessness, but I don’t want to delude us into a permanent dreamstate either. This place has to be completely new, never touched by us, unknown. Let’s bring back the idea of flying and skies to marry our salmon and butterfly: 

But there’s a place 

In a sky never flown 

Okay, so the salmon and butterfly couple are here in our sky, but what about our grounding, and what’s in between? We need the field to return. Now, what is the atmosphere like? Is it heavy here? Light? I think I want it all to be newborn. We don’t know. What is a part of our weather that is in every climate? Wind. Let’s make it so the wind has never lived here. That’s how untouched it is:

By a field 

Where the wind has never blown,

The scene is set, now we’ve got to fall into our place. In a world so new, so free, what would you want to do? I would want to run. Imagine what that looks like to you, running on your own:

There I am running, 

Out on my own 

What are we doing, running and all? We are reaching for something with our hearts, weaving through these fields, trying our best to understand them more, longing for them more. This is not our dream, but the understanding of it:

Longing for a dream

Not yet known

And there we have it. The last poem of the cycle. 

Not Yet Known

Pull the fields above me 

Perfect purple sky 

Peaking in the twilight 

A salmon swimming high 

Lose myself to become what 

I could be if I tried 

To swim there too 

Flutters on my fingers 

From the butterfly 

Monarch in my thinking 

Touch my wings, 

forget to fly 

But there’s a place 

In a sky never flown 

By a field 

Where the wind has never blown,

There I am running, 

Out on my own 

Longing for a dream

Not yet known

Thank you for reading this post and responding in a way meaningful to you! 

This cycle has been fun to dissect together :)