"Home port safe harbour" (or, "My Capricorn Moon")

Riding at anchor more or less placidly
With beloved materia, with candles and pictures,

With gems and bangles and dragons and paintbrushes,
Seashells and little owls all in a row.

Love of books, of photographs, 

Of feathers and stone and quartz,

Of things made by little hands long ago.

Past moments arrayed, strung together

On shelves, on walls, between pages,

In boxes, chests, tins, jars,

Holding me steady.
My sentimentality
Chains me.

Worthless odds and ends of immense value,

Irreplaceable,

Strewn so artfully in right relationship;

More thoughtful, more harmonious

Than the originals they echo.

Fraught and loving

My eyes sweep hungrily

Year after year

Comfort and pain and guilt and belonging.
So so familiar.
My reference points,

Our stories,

My museum of identity
Calmly moors my vessel.

By Lizzy.
Early March 2013.