Home II

There are certain sights the mind’s eye does not forget;

My memory, steeped in your greenery, follows me like a hungry ghost.

The ring hill, owls on a Midsummer night, the barn under fireworks, the diesel thieves and strawberry thieves and plumtree thieves, and the men who set the house across the road on fire.

I cannot forget my home, nor the man who brought us all into being, with one breath. The man who lent Grandpa a shelf of gold, whose century-old mattress steeped in loneliness and dust, had sewn his inheritance into the walls of his house.

What chutzpah we had to be ourselves, to be born in the midst of darkness and donkeys and their herds.

I long for the sweet summer air, heavy with dew and fruit, and the wind carrying pine needles and cones across the forests.

I long for the land of home with my eyes, my heart; I yearn for the cries of animals fleeing each other and the night. I yearn for my grandparents, I yearn for my gut, I yearn for another time.

A world long expired.