A Pig Poem in Response to the Elephant Poem

Wednesday night I used the William Stafford poem (the post below), "A Ritual to Read to Each Other," in a class in which I discussed some of the ways we get stuck in places we didn't intend to make home . . . we get lost holding the tails of the elephants before us . . . patterns others have made prevail in us . . . we follow the wrong god home and miss our star.

At the class I also offered a poem I had written earlier in the week as I considered Stafford's poem while reflecting on my own prodigal experience. Later, a friend referred to Stafford's poem as "the elephant poem" and to mine as "the pig poem." This is what I wrote:

At the time you followed
where they led
taking for yourself
the patterned life
they offered

You had no way of knowing
how stuck you
would become
in that far country
sucking pods
with pigs

and how much energy you'd need
to point yourself toward home

and how you'd have to leave pigs
littered alongside every homeward stretch of road

and how the dark and strenuous journey
back would become your life.