I don’t know when the worn-out paths became strangers

and the strangers became so familiar

When did our conversations once so rich in meaning

Full of aches, arguments and laughter

became predictable

And our closeness turned into an awkward construct natured by nostalgia

When did the language of my youth became so difficult to recall

Its poetry eludes me now

I want to sing about the shades of colours and emotions

But my expressions are barren

When did I lose myself on the path between longing and hope

In the fear of being inadequate or misunderstood

When did the pasts collide

And we found ourselves entangled in a net or differences

That weren’t there before

Who am I now

When I don’t know my language anymore

When my history altered by the turmoil of change

Is no longer shared

And your history is not mine yet

When your language is still a stranger in my mouth

In my ears

I was once like a dandelion seed

Happily dancing on the wind of youth

In the land that I did not grow up in

I am torn and rooted at the same time

I am witnessed by the moon

And caressed by the sun

At once the same and yet unfamiliar

In the moments of realisation

I hold on to the bits that are me

Not wanting to let go

Tearing and reconstructing the paper towers of memories

The collages of faces

Paths and places that no longer exists

Words that lost their meanings

And words that I am yet to learn

I am a traveller in time

In history

In space

With the heart and feat at a discord

Out of step with myself

Always on the move

Never settled

A construct of identities as artificial as the borders

I am welcomed and despised

Always a stranger

When I came to Scotland to learn English, I arrived without the knowledge of the language and became acutely aware of a gesture as my only means of communication. It took me years to be able to understand the nuances of local humour and to tell jokes in English, and yet this ease of communication is crucial to being recognised as familial. But speaking the same language is not the end of the story.  Understanding each other is a much more complex concept and this work, just as the wider Conversations series, is my reflection, and my invitation for you to consider: What happens when a gesture is all that you can go on, the only means of communication?  Amongst the voices which are non-comprehensible?  Amongst the words that you understand but the meaning of which escapes you? When your calls for justice and peace are unheard or misinterpreted? When you reach out but are rejected? Just ponder, please.

The paths of the morning are drenched in the sunlight

Faded traces of times past

Trodden back and forth

Strangers increasingly familiar

Like the spiderweb of a dream catcher

Promising that memories can come alive again

Which way is home?

Thin strings of conversations

Threads of old stories

Shadows of fleeting moments that we have shared

Which way is home?

The strangeness of my mother tongue

Like a cut of an umbilical cord

Is leaving me devoid of its poetry

Of its nourishment

In the violence of becoming a stranger

I ask

Which way is home?

An intruder in my mother’s hand

Cutting through the fabric of the distance

Cold, impatient and impartial

The conjurer of illusion that we are still together

Still close

Against your glass surface

I search for the softness of her skill

Her warmth

Recalling her gentle perfume

I ask

Which way is home?

I watch the lines on my husband’s face

Carving their new paths each day

Matching my own

Memories woven into a cloth that binds us together

Which way is home?

There is a stubble on my children’s cheeks now

And I delight in their occasional embrace

Melting in these moments of a rare affection

I keep asking

Which way is home?