Desperate for Home

 

Cox Bay ~ Warren Rudd photo

My desperate search for peace

began at age four. Surrounded

by the unpeaceful, I learned

tranquillity at my grandma's cottage,

so quiet you could hear the metal clock

on the kitchen windowsill,
ticking and tocking

through the five small rooms.

I found and lost serenity
at intervals,

depending on who was close by,
until the need

grew so fierce, solitude

was the only way to sustain it.

Even stronger was my desire

for the sea. For years it called to me

with its siren song, drew me to it

like a murrelet to its nest,

or a grey whale to her

feeding ground. Once found
and claimed, then lost,

my whole spirit yearned

all day every day
thereafter

for my return.

It took seventeen years

to come back to my heart's home,

the universe gifting me my wildest dream
not once but twice.

And now, every single morning

I wake with gratitude,

go through my days

in peacefulness, serene.
All is Enough -
no more is needed
to suffice.

for Shay's prompt at Desperate Poets: Desperate Desires. The two strongest drives of my life have been the quest for a peaceful everyday existence (difficult to manage in the life I was granted), and the strong call of the ocean that drew me out of the desert, over the mountains to the sea. I did feel desperate all those years I lived in the wrong place, until I arrived at the home of my spirit, and that questing, seeking voice inside was stilled. Home at last. I have been so lucky.