The Wrong Way Round
Listen to Zaro read her poem ...
sitting
the wrong way round in the train
can’t help but notice
I am heading backwards through today
cause from my speeding
window-blur
outside fades away
erasing most things
soon minutes vanish
hours dissolve
years hurtle past
then centuries
then ages
world grows younger
and earlier
and earlier
mature trees now saplings
distant mountains shrink to ancient flat-lands
great whales walk the earth
starlings become packs of low-swooping dinosaurs
I hurtle backwards
even faster
past last spring
and the winter before that
past my parents
my ancestors
my clan
my species
the rest of living things
until I am an atom
like every other atom
as old and new
as fiery and uncertain
as the fuzzy beginning of us all
never knowing
let alone dreaming
that one day
I would be me
seated on a train traveling
the wrong way round
the wrong way round in the train
can’t help but notice
I am heading backwards through today
cause from my speeding
window-blur
outside fades away
erasing most things
soon minutes vanish
hours dissolve
years hurtle past
then centuries
then ages
world grows younger
and earlier
and earlier
mature trees now saplings
distant mountains shrink to ancient flat-lands
great whales walk the earth
starlings become packs of low-swooping dinosaurs
I hurtle backwards
even faster
past last spring
and the winter before that
past my parents
my ancestors
my clan
my species
the rest of living things
until I am an atom
like every other atom
as old and new
as fiery and uncertain
as the fuzzy beginning of us all
never knowing
let alone dreaming
that one day
I would be me
seated on a train traveling
the wrong way round
This poem is copyright (©) Zaro Weil 2024
About the Writer
Zaro Weil
Zaro has been a lot of things: dancer, theatre director, actress, poet, playwright, educator, quilt collector and historian, author, publisher and a few others. She has been collecting American quilts for more than twenty years and has exhibited her collection variously in London galleries. She has written on quilts for Vogue, Elle Decoration, Traditional Homes and Interiors as well as numerous newspapers. Her poetry for children has appeared in many anthologies. She has written several books including a book of children’s poetry, Mud, Moon and Me (Orchard Books, UK and Houghton Mifflin, USA), Firecrackers (Troika) illustrated by Jo Riddell and Cherry Moon (2020 CLiPPA Award Winner).
