napowrimo -- coming home

coming home

there is an invisible wall between not-home and home
you know instantly when you cross it, and are now home.
sometimes this invisible wall is precisely located
coincident with a physical wall, and the moment of transition
happens as you walk through a door.

home can expand, extend out, to the driveway, the sidewalk,
the street corner, the neighborhood, or even when you
come around that curve on the hill and see the city,
or around the time you have to turn off your electronic devices
as the pilot makes his final approach.

home can also shrink,
just the back half of the house
just my room
just my bed
and finally so small that even though i am standing right next to it
i cannot get inside.

for some, home is not separated by inches or feet
but by years.  what seems like home is unreachable
because there is a strip mall and a laundromat
where there used to be something that mattered
and the only way home is backwards through time.

for me, home is still there,
that sense of comfort and welcome,
the mysterious instant of transfiguration,
a destination not fixed in time or place.
home is a threshold that i cross
when i am with you.

 

I didn't want to spoil the poem by commenting before the ending.  I just want to say that the imaginary person who speaks in this poem is much sweeter and kinder than I am.  I am glad I can use his voice for this poem, I wish I were more like him, but a court of law, on reviewing the evidence, would find he and I to be only distantly related.

Comments

[Ryan Sharp]

Might be a new favorite of mine.

[Kathy]

love the transfiguration reference - what a beautiful way to describe, no, suggest home!