“Gears of Time, Cogs of Life” by Finnegan Fant
May 8, 2021
Gears of time, cogs of life
home is the trees rushing by as I speed
down a mountain, the scent of pine sap
as I leave the ground, the shocks of a downhill bike absorbing force as I slam
back down to earth.
Home is my dad coming home
after months on a halibut schooner
released after all that time
from that amalgamation of thousands of cold, cruel hooks.
Home is the taste of chilies
carving burning trenches down my throat.
Home is the red heat of a forge
the blue spark of a welder.
Home is the is the sound of a soft Seattle rain.
Home is both still and in constant motion
home is not one place
it is constantly reshaping as I live
life, the grease of the ever-grinding gears time.
Finnegan Fant, of Nathan Hale High School, read this poem to open our 2020/21 Journalism Series event with Patrick Radden Keefe on Monday, May 10, 2021. Written during the 2019/20 school year with WITS Writer-in-Residence Matt Gano.