Breezin’ in Maracas
A poem about standing still long enough to remember you were never trapped
I think one of the coolest parts of being a writer is being inspired by new places. There’s something about nature that's so freeing, and I couldn’t help but write.
Maracas did that for me. I wasn’t trying to write anything. I was just standing at a railing with the sea in front of me and George Benson somewhere in the background, and the poem sort of arrived on its own. This is what came out of that afternoon.
I came to the edge of the island
with a phone in my hand
and nowhere I needed to be.
The sea had been practicing blue
all morning,
and the sky had decided
to make a little room for itself.
I stood there
in a borrowed moment,
watching the water carry
everything it touched
without asking where it was going.
Maybe that is what I liked about it.
No deadlines.
No unanswered questions.
No version of myself
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I had to become by Monday.
Just me,
a railing,
the sun finding its way
across my shirt,
and George Benson somewhere in the background
making the afternoon
feel like it had nowhere else to go.
I looked at the islands in the distance
and thought —
perhaps freedom
is not always a door opening.
Sometimes
it is simply standing somewhere beautiful
long enough
to remember
you were never the cage.
And for once,
I didn’t reach for tomorrow.
I let the breeze
have me.
