Poetry Challenge - Day 26

For today's prompt, write a "more than 5 times" poem. Of course, I'll let you decide what that means. Maybe you'll write a poem about something the narrator does more times than preferrable; maybe you'll write a deja vu poem; or maybe you'll just write the same line and/or stanza more than 5 times. I just know that multiple poets recently said the "More than 5 times" subject line would make a great prompt, so I'm listening to the group. Have at it!


More than five times

Maybe six I have been to Germany
Does it take so little to build an identity?
The window pulls out at a slant from the top
and the air lifts in cool
to rouse me from my traveling state
as it always did

always
more than five times

Deep voices rise from the stairwell
and my aunt has brought afternoon tarts out to the patio
More than five times,
six maybe, ten, twelve
I have come here, near here,
home to these home-like places where the windows
pull open on a slant and the air
lifts in cool from the garden
where I've played and later, formally sat

My Oma's breakfast table has moved to a new house
since she is no longer in the old one
to arrange her shoes in a long row in the kitchen
or peel potatoes
or close the books in Latin
and her backyard has grown intricate, wild, impenetrable.
As, in some ways, have I.

The chairs are around her table exactly the same
but somewhere else.
The whole room, just moved
I sit in one, tear brötchen
I have made from some yeast of memory

Today, we will ride horses at Britta's
In the evening, we will walk behind Opa
in the woods where the first time
the first of any, maybe any, dimming edge
of possible fairytale memory
- we hunted in the dark wet woods
for wild mushrooms

One moment is enough, maybe,
to seed a hybrid sense of self, if you find
a wild morrel underneath a forest fern
but have no right words
for any of it, muddy shoes, muddy trim on
your little dress, someone blonde
moving there, someone with a basket near
but your Vati is there,
almost on the outer edge of his true youth,
speaking words you can't understand.

One doesn't need to understand the words
to know when they are loving, to know
when you are good
and belong
and always will