Peter Newton
The Way Back
“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow”
—Theodore Roethke
This century-old ceiling is cracked plaster, dingy as unwashed sheets. It’s a map of the world and today, I am sailing along the Euphrates to where it meets the Tigris. A thicket of reeds hides the riverbanks. There are crocs inside. And maybe snakes. Between the two rivers is the land called Mesopotamia. I remember my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Peloni, at Beechwood Elementary giving us this fact. How she made us all say “mes-uh-puh-tey-mee-uh” out loud and in unison like we were in some sort of one-room schoolhouse. It means “Land Between the Rivers,” she informed us. And here I am crossing it as she said, who knows, maybe one day I would.
trade winds Magellan now an index fund
I have long since forgotten who lived in Mesopotamia and why it was important for us to learn about it in grade school. Only that now it is very likely a war zone or a former war zone or a yet-to-be war zone. Either that or just desert. Whatever journey I was dreaming of has since dried up. The ceiling has turned back into itself, no longer a map of the great rivers of the world. But what happens after a bomb raid. Or just what happens.
feeling for a way in the wasp ahead of winter
About the Author
Peter Newton is the author of several books in the Japanese short form traditions of haiku, haibun, and tan renga. His newest book of haiku is Glide Path (Red Moon Press, 2022).