memories in Wellington – Alexis Draut

memories in Wellington

Katie and I each stole a boiled egg, salted them, and
ate them on the porch behind the wharekai.
On a walk in a neighborhood I didn’t know,
I found a red leaf and pretended it was my lips.

I’m out of words to offer the sun
from my mind. All I have left now is
silence and no answers
but would you still draw the Milky Way
on the back of my hand so I can
never say I’m lost?

I can dance without music in
a field of uncut grass or be a
pacifist for micro-ecosystems.
How do I choose?

I remember
sitting in this seat with entirely different company –
two years ago and Jamey was telling me about hard drugs
and the lovers she’s had and making a raised bed with her two hands.
I didn’t care for birds then, only recently have I started
to notice their distinct colors and calls, and
it always reminds me of her and how we bonded
over our indifference once.

Forget about your Bible for a year, write two poems
a day, get lost in a city – then you’ll understand
how I’m fitting into this world. Listen to the wind,
give spiders their own names, go to your favorite
place in the universe, whether or not you’ve been
there before. Use your headlamp to read at night,
pack a lunch of just vegetables, and spend all of your
time acknowledging how the sun acknowledges your
very existence each morning. Cry over things that don’t
matter, or do matter, cry in an airport next to a statue
or a dragon, and accept that fighting and laughing in the
same family dinner is just fine. Cry and grasp
onto the face of the world with both hands,
for its beauty goes so far beyond your
own mind, but at least you can say
you tried to see a glimpse.

Alexis Draut is a native Kentuckian, born and raised in both Louisville and Danville, KY. She heavily associates with her sense of place, whether that be her homes in Kentucky, Georgia, Colorado or New Zealand. She became interested in poetry and creative writing at a young age, has taken classes, and participated in poetry groups as well as writing workshops. Her writing heavily revolves around her passions for social justice, gender equality, environmental preservation, spiritual curiosity, the earth, and nonviolence. Her favorite pastimes besides writing are reading, water coloring, gardening, swimming, tide pooling and listening to Brandi Carlile. While Alexis is a newly public poet, she has recently been published in Buddy, a lit zine with her piece “lost”, Jenny Mag (YSU Literary) with “Norfolk pine”, and Havik Anthology with “earthquake.”