The
Passage with no Name
Joyce
A. O. Lee
Did
you ever wonder about how it would feel if you jumped in a hole?
Would you scream? Would you squeal?
If there were no bottom and you couldn't stop,
And you knew where you came in, you'd jumped in at the top.
And if you fell through, just what would you do,
On your way down to some other town.
You could take a nap because it's so far,
To where you are going, as far as a star.
Or you could read a book, take one from the shelf.
I know they won't miss one, I've been there myself.
You could eat a sandwich, that one just appeared.
It's floating by magic right there by your ear.
And when you get tired, you could take a nap,
Or think of the people and where will you be,
If there's no end to this hole or it lands in the sea.
THUMP! THUMP!
"Now you're here and I'm here warmly smiling at you,
Saying, welcome to China, my name's Lee Wang Fu."
He bows and he smiles, you'll feel no alarm.
For he's friendly and offers a trip to his farm.
His family sits eating from bowls of white rice,
And they offer you some, they're all very nice.
But you want to go back to where you've come from,
So he leads you to sleep on a mat when you yawn.
Now you've had an adventure and quite a good meal,
And your eyes close so quickly, no time to explain,
That you must return to that hole whence you came.
But when you awaken from that little nap,
You're in your own bed with your cat on your back.
With all your warm covers up over your head,
You know you've made new friends with nothing to dread.
You'll sit up in your bed, wipe the rice from your chin.
All to do to return home is to wake up and grin.
For child, I've been there in dreams just like you,
And I've met that old farmer who's named Lee Wang Fu.
Your fast trip to China was so much like mine,
All to do to return home is to open your eyes.
***
Joyce
A. O. Lee is the author of the novel The Length of a Love
Song, published in 2005 by Cold Tree Press. Her poems were
included in Our Voices: Williamson County Literary Review,
1997 and 1998. She attended Columbia State Community College,
where she studied literature, English composition, and creative
writing. She has studied creative writing with Richard Speight;
Clay Stafford; Darnell Arnoult; and Maggie Vaughn, Poet Laureate
of Tennessee. She is a member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance
and the Williamson County Council for the Written Word. Joyce
is originally from Kansas City, Missouri, and has lived in the
Middle Tennessee area since 1973. She has been writing full time
for fifteen years.
Joyce
wrote this poem when her grandson was three, having dreams, and
waking in the middle of the night.
©
Joyce Ann O'Hara Lee