Asylum Portraiture
Framed between the ward walls
Is a double-paned, black edged window
Through which I can see my native mountains,
Their beloved foothills, the Ramapos,
Purpuling the midground in gentle waves.
My longing stares change nothing
As I breathe slowly, noting the distance,
Surely no more than twelve or fifteen miles:
A skittering through the complex,
Then out to a busy road and a hitch
Where I’d take on normal woman proportions.
I’ve sheltered many times under
The leafy herbage of the watching forest,
Had droplets patter leaves to tranquilize me,
But I’ve never longed to stand sentinel
In a landscape, guarding its very reality,
Grasping for sounds, smells, textures, colors.
Here they don’t let you outside into anything;
Not for a leisurely walk or a sociable picnic.
You’re inside now, to protect you, they say,
But they can’t stop your inborn longing:
One room was built with something of a view.
N.H. Rowdan is a poet from Northern NJ with an education in English and creative writing. Rowdan has spent the last couple of years reconnecting with the craft of poetry and becoming part of a poetic community again.
Framed between the ward walls
Is a double-paned, black edged window
Through which I can see my native mountains,
Their beloved foothills, the Ramapos,
Purpuling the midground in gentle waves.
My longing stares change nothing
As I breathe slowly, noting the distance,
Surely no more than twelve or fifteen miles:
A skittering through the complex,
Then out to a busy road and a hitch
Where I’d take on normal woman proportions.
I’ve sheltered many times under
The leafy herbage of the watching forest,
Had droplets patter leaves to tranquilize me,
But I’ve never longed to stand sentinel
In a landscape, guarding its very reality,
Grasping for sounds, smells, textures, colors.
Here they don’t let you outside into anything;
Not for a leisurely walk or a sociable picnic.
You’re inside now, to protect you, they say,
But they can’t stop your inborn longing:
One room was built with something of a view.
N.H. Rowdan is a poet from Northern NJ with an education in English and creative writing. Rowdan has spent the last couple of years reconnecting with the craft of poetry and becoming part of a poetic community again.
