Turning Towards Home

I am Traveler,

who spends a decade at a time

poised to move on,

yet marching in place because,

sometime, 

I just might be needed.

I have been a mother

since I was still a child.

What to do with my mothering,

when my whole life's work

has been weighed 

and found wanting?

I am the quiet heart waiting

and waiting 

for someone to give something back.

I am loneliness,

surrounded by busy, distracted people.

What is left when all is said and done?

My dog's anxious head,

thrusting itself under my hand, to say

"I'm here, I'm here."

A heart bruised and battered, 

and filled with chagrin,

for the choices made,

that could have been other,

and for all the years gone.

This morning I woke without fear.

But it is even more frightening

to wake without joy.

The sad gilt edges of the day

nibble at my toes

that dont want to go out,

though the sun is broad-beckoning.

In my soul is a great turning,

like a sonar,

towards the western shore,

alive with seabirds,

ablaze with sunrises and sunsets,

where every morning I once woke with joy,

- alive! alive! -

in a life that was wholly,

and completely

mine.

And with everything that's in me,

I am turning,

one last time,

towards home.

[I have been in a funk, without one idea of anything to write, till I read Marina's intriguing prompt at dVerse: to answer the following four questions, based on Banhu Kapil's Vertical Interrogation of Strangers. 

1) Who are you and whom do you love?
2) What else are you, that no one has seen before?
3) Describe a morning you woke without fear.
4) What lingers when all is said and done?]