Sunday Poem

Galaxies

Driving home down South Main from grandma’s in a blizzard
Mom clutching the wheel, wordless.

The girls are asleep in the back.

I’m wide eyed, wide awake

watching us hurtle through black outer space

as the star flakes rush past our hyper-driving ship,

wondering what galaxies we leave in our wake.

Heading for mom’s house

And then off to dad’s house.

Mom’s house and then dad’s house

Every other weekend.

Wednesday night dinners

Summers and holidays

Back and forth along the road

This is your home too, they always say

But home is a singularity

Not a multitude of infinite stars

Dispersed across the vastness of space.

I'll never go to Mars
I'll never visit Andromeda

I have always been en route

Traveling from one place to the next.

Going from this home to that.

There’s always been one place I’ve wished to find

But with millions of stars rushing past,

How would I know which one was really mine?

I have been forever seeking a place to rest;

How was a boy supposed to choose which one was best?

Home is always someplace else,

Over there, a place to someday go,

Never quite right here.

Home is a quest,

a thumbtack on a secret map

I had taped behind my desk.

Home is an idea, a wishful destination,

A journey without an arrival.

This is my son in his home;

He knows no other.

I will see him tonight again in this house,

After the last knot is thrown,
and the wounds are all sealed.
Winter now comes round again.

The snow is just snow rapping the windshield.

And stars are just fiery balls of distant hydrogen

Lighting cold worlds I’ll never get to see.

But I am still traveling along the road.

Ever the itinerant wanderer,

Ever searching for a home of my own,

Wondering about worlds I wish I had known.

11/11/18