Finding Home

Walking to school in the morning,
passing by little cottages with picket fences
and milk bottles on the porch,
tears ran down her face,
she so longed for a home of her own,
a place of refuge,
peaceful and safe.

She grew up and created those homes,
many of them,
lost some and started over from scratch,
with nothing, as single moms do,
sleeves rolled up,
eyes bright and determined
and a heart high with the challenge
of rebuilding a nest for her four chicks,
one made with laughter and hope
and dreams of new beginnings.

Observing this sequence of events
backwards, hindsight being 20/20,
she recognized at some point
Home had become a place inside herself,
that she carried with her,
the way a turtle inhabits its shell,
or a sand dollar creates its home
from the sand and grit around it,
and carries it along.

Home was within,
and it also was as large as
the forest and the sea,
under the bright blue sky,
shared for a time
with a big, black laughing wolf,
whose heart contained
all the wild.


for Brendan's prompt at Real Toads: to write a poem about home. This was the quest of my life, since childhood. I spent years walking miles,  looking at houses I passed, imagining the lives lived within. This feeling of homelessness finally stopped when, in my early 30's, I had my first  real home, thanks to my mother's help, where I raised my children for a time. But there would be many more moves, and homes, after that. For one who only wanted to settle down, I did a lot of moving! Perhaps 40 times all told in my lifetime.........