I grew up
with the black dirt between my toes
and the planes above me
and my golden hill and mountain
looking down on me in my valley
and the birch leaves that
remarked in their rustling
on everything I wrote down
in my book.
And then I flew away,
for a moment,
eager to come back again.
Far over my mountain
I found myself
sitting on a mosaic floor
and wandering underneath
dark paintings of the heavens.
All men’s heavens
from before anyone discovered my mountain.
And then to a train and to mountains
not like mine, but
green and, best of all,
filled with the beauty
of human souls
and human breath
and human hands
and human love
and I fell in love.
If only I had fallen in love
with one body,
for a body can be moved,
almost whole, I thought,
from place to place.
The land between the hills
the voice of a particular river,
all their essence in
the Body you bow your head with
and the citizenry who share your breakfast.
The song and the dance and the smell
so loud in the night
you have forgotten what it was
to be unconscious of it.
From nurture,
eyes
you cannot burn out
when you thought your set complete.
Things you cannot transport.
Things that will not weave together.
Things that are home.
And when they are two, you feel you will always be two.
-Nov 7, 2015
(any photos with merit in this post from Miwaza)
P.S. Got the one way ticket for Ukraine this August.
Liberty Bound 