Funny Thing ...
I live my later decades on the side of a mountain
engulfed in sea
in the 21st century
but a hayfield with its harvest all bailed up
at regular intervals
across the sweep of the flat land
Makes something in me cry.
My blood is made of generations
of once-English Americans
but pulled by an unseen string
to a Pacific island
far from any continent
I encounter something I recognize
in shivers all over my body.
And the thing that felt so close
in the Vermont woods
And the very air I knew the name of
in the Yucatan Peninsula,
in the Northern New Mexico mountains
in the Monterey fog
Nothing like a stranger
Everything like an old and ancient friend.
All the things I knew to do
before I knew what they were
or what they would mean.
The ways I have known a few of you
when we had never met.
The way I long for you now
(or is it for me?)
missing not only my past
but also my future
The one in which you find me home
ready and waiting.