Bringing It All Back Home

“the smallest sprout shows there is really no death” [Whitman]

the places we go that mean the most leave traces

in us matching the prints we left, a little dirt here

& there that marks our being there, our respect

for the moments spent together or alone, within

the sacred spot, the gathering place, the haunt

though there is really no going home, home shifts

like a satellite disguised as planet so slowly making

a way across the vast unempty,  detected but not

known, unknowable until the orbit ends in slow

oblivion, then the many pieces sort out one by one

when happiness settles in the lines around a mouth

something changes in the brain allowing an unusual

connectivity to link ego & sound, sight, feeling, urge,

sending a slow building pulse through the body whose

consistency converts inclination into faith into certainty:

this can never go away because it is a part of me

when pain & loss settle in the tributaries of the eyes

something triggers these same memories, though

the certainty fades to doubt, denial & disillusion,

still the faithful call out in prayer & skeptics clinch

down upon the traces of what was & might still be

answers, hard to come by, float up as pond steam

on a morning that seemed too cool for fog or storm

or the look of a cloud suggests a known place, sun

hanging through an evening in such a way as to

bring back a day’s feeling thought unrecoverable:

could it be possible that you know what I mean?

are you listening to these thoughts  as footprints

of a former life, lived & shared, slowly reappear

as blue grey cloud, & jet-stream trails lead to some

reunion, homecoming, or dream-haunted home?

if we wait patiently, will you really meet us there?