Jimmy Pitts is a poet, artist, and co-editor of Vox Journal
in Oxford, Mississippi.
“Age of Discovery”
from The Local Voice #35: Download PDF
We want our children to be old when they are young,
expect them to hold the wheel of the lifeboat steady
across the rocks that we once hit, on a dead run,
we fool ourselves that they are ready
to manuever through all the traps that
kept us off course, beyond the shore.
We want so much for them, and more–
we want too much–it’s enough to simply live,
and take the pain you learn to feel,
take each slap the world is glad to give,
and go again without finally losing your mind.
It’s almost too much to want that they might find
a current that leads out of this back channel river,
as Columbus knew the feeling–
the first horizon at dawn, after all, was only a sliver,
such far away green to his sleepy Italian eyes.
It’s no surprise, then, that children grow up
to shock us in our hearts.
We are made to be broken,
made of a thousand breaking parts,
and tiny cogs get stuck right in the biggest wheels,
and finally grind us to the ground.
We want to argue but in the end
we make no sound, because
we learn to let them go.
A wilderness awaits,
and they will fight it hand-to-hand.
Columbus knew it–knew the feeling,
when he stepped down from the boat,
into a new and sacred land.
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