I’ve never been, precisely, homeless. 

I’m securely (so far) settled in the 1%

(Not in this country,

But certainly in this world).

When I’ve had a long day

And I suspect there’s viruses at play

I have a comforter

Of bright cranberry tones

To wrap my weary corpus. 

I don’t care for it, much,

This place I live,

But the rain that’s falling stays outside

And my comforter does not need

To turn aside the chilly wind. 

And yet I’ve felt the empty space,

The yawning gulf within that yearns

For #home. 

A place refreshing to the body and the soul. 

A place where shelter makes a space of calm. 

Pull up the cranberry comforter, then. 

This son of earth, and stars, and spirit

Needs refreshing, needs renewing,

Needs a #home. 

 

It is a curious element, #water.

It quenches thirst.

It bows the head of fire.

It cools hot feet.

But I can’t quite help seeing

What they saw when looking out to sea

In Indonesia and Sri Lanka,

Echoed later on the eastern shores

Of Japan.

Or on a different horrid day

In ancient Crete when the great wave

Left an empire floundering.

Liquid water, snow and steam

(Did you know that water waits for dust

So it can “remember” how to freeze?),

I am a creature made less from the dust of earth

Than from earth’s great waters.

Stuff of life, stuff of rescue,

Stuff of balm, stuff of destruction.

Which rebuke do I prefer?

The rebuke of the empty plate,

Which comes to me demanding that

It carry away my gift when it moves on?

Or the rebuke of the brimming plate,

Which comes to me and smugly says,

“Will you be one with us or not?”

 

No, the hardest rebuke is the one I hear

In the sounding telephone.

“I need some help,” I hear,

And cringe.

“How much this time?” I wonder, and

“How much next time?” because

It never really ends.

 

 I cannot claim a particularly fortunate life

Yet among those whose paths run far more torturous than mine:

My caller.

 

“Yes,” I say,

Because there must be friendship, trust,

And the willingness to give

Or there can be no #offering.

Sometimes #the_road leads nowhere.

 

I live on a cul-de-sac, a side street which runs downhill from the town’s Main Street toward the Connecticut River. For most of us, it is a road that leads only home (the farmer at the street’s end works in those fields). If we want to go anywhere else, we have to go the other way.

 

In spring, particularly in a spring when heavy winter snowpacks in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire melt swiftly, the river rises dramatically. Looking down my street, I can see very clearly just how far I can go. So far, and no further, unless I want to change my car for a canoe.

 

That may be why I’m so fascinated with bridges.

 

A bridge transforms the road to nowhere to a road to somewhere. The boundary remains an obstacle, but loses the character of insuperability. I can leap over, and I do not even need to fly.

 

What would a road be without a bridge?

 

For most of us, #trust is a choice.

 

But not for a broad-leafed evergreen. Beneath a load of winter’s ice, its leaves pine for warmth and sun. 

 

January, February, March may pass and its faith goes unrewarded.

 

As surely as night follows day follows night, the ice will thaw. The cold will pass.

 

An evergreen’s trust will never be betrayed.