I don’t want to go back, But I am unsure of forward; Frustration meets me In this state of being Stuck; Home is where the heart is, Still, a place is needed, To be, For one to be lifted up By land and Held by space, That which is affirming and accepting, And welcomes you to its setting, I am working on that for me, For us, After adversity jettisoned us From where we had Only meant to be temporarily, Somehow, I had forgotten; Midnight, Deja-vu, Online, I am here and now looking, For a place, the next move.
Butterfly went home After their first flight; Home to cocoons And caterpillars, Who each longed to know of their possible future, But could not yet understand What air beneath one’s wings Could feel like, Each at their own time to cocoon Metamorphosis awaiting at their own pace, In their own way; Not all will get to fly For some time is much shorter But they all change, They all in the end are freed Of corporeal vessels Of various form, Even if they will never know The flight of a butterfly, They all may appreciate The diversity in their shapes And the cycle That unites them all.
The creaking of the porch swing brings me back, Back And forth, My brown limbs outstretch to power the rocking And I feel the air brush against them, Like when I was small And my legs dangled from a sun-bleached wooden swing That like my maternal grandparents I wish were still here today, This was their house, The rural abode Where I, their first grandchild, And a then newly dubbed city-kid, would return Again and again, With memory of toddlerhood here, Running, With chubby caramel-colored baby legs Sitting in and exploring , and feeling the fresh cut green grass, on this same land; This was my first home It always will be, It was where my mother carried me in body, Herself breathing in country air, In this her family home, It is where I swing now, With a new bench beneath me, And older, lengthened tan legs moving me, Back and forth, Still I have always been Between places, In movement, Like this swing, And that is what I aim still to do, To swing back between here, Pennsylvania, And my New England home of familiarity; Between the two places Distinct accents call me back, And forth, incantations to return again And again, The swing with its own creaking accent calms me And keeps me in place for now, Both driven and pulled by nostalgia While I figure out best laid plans To be In each beloved place, In each their own time.
I was critical of my result, Fearful I was deemed less Progressive, less inclusive, Less open-minded, less accepting, less anti-racist, Less, Less Than I see myself, Than I wish to be, What can I fix? What can I make be What I know is more authentically me? But check, Check one, Check one, two, three, There’s more to the picture than I had perceived, There’s a place I reside where I am alone, Where shielding my differences Is how I make this Safe–“home”, More comfortable than were I out bearing all, Being me, Being free, I’m enclosed in the wild open, Still a black girl in Maine, A rare, wild specimen, Afraid of being tracked, Tagged, hunted by the Majority, whom I’m swimming in, Marginality makes me weary, Getting closer to authenticity is my aim, But duck and weave is the game, I am no less, Just extremely stressed, Identity under duress
As much as I find formation, In the Ivory tower that surrounds me, There is something missing, Begging for completion in this equation, It is a longing for familiar arms and body For me to embrace, And the comfort of love in the flesh Made closer to my being, It is a need for the very souls that drive me in my seeking, It is an irony of needing to leave to find what is most needed Is what was left behind, I knew this already, But it is the felt notion that brings this to brightest light, In missing home.
Familiar buildings
I’ve never seen the insides of,
Sky scraped,
Smoke stacked,
Green bridge stretched out,
Connecting lands manmade,
Autumn gold filigree along city streets,
Red brick pavement under
History we breathe
History we bare, with every beat.
She of Letters 