Conversations [Which way…?]
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?
