Time Zones
Caretaker, guardian,
.. . . . . .not a label I thought I’d have at this age.
Of a baby, at any rate.
Already two generations apart,
.. . . . . .I’ve flown six time zones away.
You, eight months old,
.. . . . . .and me, on an eleven-day journey.
I can feel you here—
.. . . .your baby cheeks and newly tactile fingers,
.. . . . . .your cloud of black curls.
In Norway, everything is electric.
I mean that in terms of transport,
.. . . . . .but also, as in being in another world—
Viking fjords in ice blue,
.. . . .glacier-cast mountains that thumbed up
.. . . . . .and swallowed portions of the sky.
We leave you video messages from overlooks and trains.
There’s already a chill in the air, but the light is still
long and glowing while we sleep, pale lager in our veins.
.. . . .Leaves on the aspen trees going golden.
.. . . . . .They twirl and sputter like windchimes,
channeling current—
.. . . . . .the onset of autumn. Cyclical,
a word that might be used to describe anything,
little one, my namesake back home.
Since we’ve been gone,
.. . . .two teeth have pebbled up to landmark
.. . . . . .another stage of your infancy,
while metamorphic inclines and brightly painted houses
.. . . .fly by our windows in gasps.
The horizon, kinetic and thrumming us forward.
by Laura Sobbott Ross
Editor’s Note: The metaphor of time and travel is beautifully apt in this poem as the speaker’s yearning for connection weaves through the lines much as time weaves through our lives as we travel from one heart-place to the next.
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