June 20 Writer's Roundtable: Comings and Goings

It’s been said that every story is either about leaving home or coming
back.  During the June Writer’s Roundtable on Saturday, June 20th (Note:This is a change from 2nd to 3rd Saturday, for June) Jill McCabe Johnson, Director of Artsmith will lead the discussion.

The group will look at pictures evocative of homecomings and departures, then write and share whatever poetry and prose the images inspire.

Pictures will be provided, though participants are encouraged to bring favorite images that convey a sense of journey or of coming home.

(For  information about Artsmith, check www.artsmith.org.)

Coming Home
By Mary Oliver

When we’re driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place – the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea –
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything – the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness –
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.