Home: a progression

July 5^th

I can’t quite put a finger on it, 

this feeling of being home

 of returning to a place that feels so 

            familiar 

the sweet humid air,

falling asleep to the songs of cicadas and 

the 

whir of fans. 

eating on the same porch, 

        unchanged after all these years 

swimming in the same brownish pond

        balancing on the same blue canoe

 

August 4^th

What is home but a feeling? 

or a certain type of smell?

rain clattering on tin roofs

and a friend who can’t spell well

 

Sunshine giving way to storms 

sticky rice in plastic bags 

bug spray’s sweet and sickly scent

and sisters who one must nag 

 

Home’s nine people in one truck 

with four perched in its wide bed 

cha yen, mango and lum yai’s, 

and dear pals from “way back when” 

 

But as the tropics raised me, 

so too did the farm and snow

vast fields to run amuck in

black raspberries to watch grow

 

Yet my love for tea was born 

in a gentle Spokane home,

yoga entered my rhythms 

even as I longed to roam

 

Cheney skies stand unrivaled 

the sun gently fades from view,

where I grew and learned and loved 

and death broke my heart in two 

 

People ask me where I’m from,

where is home, where are my roots?

All those thoughts rush through my mind

leaving me dazed and confused 

 

Perhaps home is deep inside me,

not a feeling nor a place. 

A deep unshakable truth:

you are meant to take up space.