Pull Me Home
There is no seed left
in Mother’s maple.
No leaf left to fall.
No root I haven’t stumbled over
sticking from the sod.
There is no word to call down lightning,
no thunder in the cloud,
no rain on the horizon,
no train to pull me home.
There’s no need to look higher than the silo.
There’s no balm for these hands
left bleeding till they’re dry.
I walked hard, so hard
all through the night,
determined to pull myself home.
There’s no stone, no sunken ship
beneath the rocking waves.
No buoy I can cling to,
no solid place to stand.
I’m tired, but I’ll tie myself
to a gust of river’d wind
and wait for seed or leaf or reaching root
to pull me from here to home.
Jenny Kalahar is a used & rare bookseller, novelist, and poet in Elwood, Indiana. She edits and publishes Last Stanza Poetry Journal. Her poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies. The 2022-2025 Poetry Society of Indiana Premier Poet, she also leads Last Stanza Poetry Assn. in Elwood, now on Covid hiatus.