Road Trips & Tall Boots

Amanda Coleman White



Image by Andrej Lišakov

 

Road Trips


While the children sleep I water them,

hoping they will grow hardy

and content with the plot

I’ve grafted them into.



Awaking, I feed them sunshine

and the scent of peat

so they recognize nature and crave it;

In this way we explore the world.



Never was there a more fitting time

to travel in search of wonder,

yet for all my pastoring about presence,

the kids continue to yearn

when in the company of mountains.

Not in awe of Ben Nevis or bowing to Cailleach,

but a cold hunger for blue light

tucked away in a bag 

as we beg them to stare

out of backseat windows.



I’m caught in this spiderweb,

or perhaps I am the spinner,

not watering but weaving;

creating the web that traps us.



Tall Boots



A city’s rise and fall

determined by footwear;

the success of an entire population

coming down to cowboy boots.



The Wild West was won,

the land, wrangled into submission;

now they make fashion statements.

Buy two, get one free

the ads all scream at tourists,

yet the locals trickle in.



I’d like to see a pair of wellies

worn instead, a sign of weathering

a town that’s worth the sweat

it took to build.



I’d like to wear shoes for mending,

for replanting and wilding,

maybe something with a steel toe

that busts up concrete

poured into foxholes and badger setts.



My feet remain uncalloused,

accustomed to city-dwelling,

but I’d like to see my children barefoot

with bracken between their toes

and earth seeping into pores.

 

Amanda Coleman White

Amanda Coleman White is currently completing her PhD from the University of Gloucestershire, where she combines Celtic myth and the works of Victorian fantasist George MacDonald. More broadly, her research interests encompass many aspects of mythology, particularly those from Northern Europe. As a writer she has been a multiple-time featured artist with Ink Sweat and Tears, a ‘Best of the Net’ Finalist through The Selkie, and is published in a variety of other literary journals, including Wee Sparrow Press and Channel magazine. Amanda holds a master’s in English literature from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.