in the end all you want is to go home
reading the book you read to find
you have arrived home on the last page
singing the song on the final note you feel
if I hold onto the last note for as long as I do that
on the arc of my breath, for that duration
I will still be here, in this april...
you do your best and the note lingers on
it is prolonged, then the wave of the music
is gone...
will come again:honey in a jar
honeysuckled where you are that
yellow tangle of light
silkscreened,
the house like the moon's causeway...
though everything forces you out
when you try to stay; even your best ghosts.
if you could, on moving day you would pack all the gardens
the bluebirds and the roots of trees
the lamp posts as they used to be
the little twilights when what was pink almost turned blue;
then settled on lavender,
even the storm clouds.
how did you do it, you wonder later
did you tell yourself I'll be back soon
did you think the moon would go with you
so I'll be ok, the blossoming lime
so you go, you take the steps necessary
but you never leave
to leave home as it exists inside you
would be to have no soul left
at all, no dessert ever again
no childhood feeling about the wind
no place to meet God
the flower leaving the sod.
the stars leaving the sky.
the ship stalled on land.
who could stand it.
mary angela douglas 26 january 2022;21 march 2023
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