Home
They
came downstream in coracles, or on foot
creating clearings in the endless forest. Every day
the land grew more familiar. They discovered
the true name of each hill, each tree, each river
in the song they carried—the heart-map
drawn in the flicker of the candle and the night fire.
Across the country the story put down roots: location
became home.
And
the border
was not earthworks or barbed wire
but the edge of a page, a line
where our story ended and another—
bristling with unpronounceable names
and impenetrable events—began.
And across the border moved the scythe
that cut people from land, snatched them
from their story, hacked music from song.
In ramshackle camps, in new towns,
walled in by concrete or grid-locked in cars
we struggle to remember what has just
slipped our minds…
Search
the lawn clippings;
lie awake in the darkness and listen
to the voices of tyres on the glistening road;
watch the stories that fly in from the sky
and roost in the corner of our rooms. Light a candle,
put on a CD. We strain our ears
for the unmistakeable whisper of home.