Escape Poem by Diana van den Berg

For half an hour
in the sun today
she dipped into her book
while her dog did lizard patrol
at the speed of bouncing, barking light
and her cat worshipped
the sun in closed-eye bliss
and the bird song around her
flowed into the story
and she slipped
into the part
of the heroine of yore
as easily as into a silk gown
or a long-loved poem
or a silvered sonata
tinkled on the piano
she had loved since she was seven -
and the rest of the story’s characters
took on the faces
and voices
of her oldest friends.

What comfort there is
in those
with whom
you share
bad,
sad
and glad,
sifting the chaff
and keeping the grain.

At the end of the chapter,
she dutifully stopped,
but paused a while
before answering the call of her work
drawing her inside
and back to the twenty-first century.

She turned her open book
upside down on her lap,
not yet ready to slip in the bookmark
that one of her children had made for her
when they were very, very young.

She needed a moment to wander
out of the story
and into the sunshine
and to reclaim her own name
and to package the slow-paced richness
of her story-book meanderings
breathed into her casket of treasures
softly this Saturday.