Every Crossroad

Every Crossroad

(“No, the message isn't far away at all. In fact, it's really near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart so that you can obey it.” Deuteronomy 31:6)

Every crossroad, I choose home;
every ballot I cast is for familiar abode.
Family or not, friends or foe, all I long for,
all ever sought is the address I remember,
the phone number still stenciled, a prefix of
letter, not numbers; every memory, I consider
home.

Thank you, cabin in the foothills,
chili simmering in the iron pot, hot to the touch,
just above the fireplace embers. Thank you, recipe
only mom and a first-class chef remembered.
(We found it handwritten in the basement the day
after she died.)

Nearly each smile, home is over my shoulder;
and true the same of tears, when I heard the shouting matches
muffled near bedtime. There were no fingers upon the wall
to interpret their meaning; mom and dad have taken them silent
to their graves.

Every sad day, I need home;
every joyful is a young sister and younger cousin
who rode upon my shoulders. I never said no,
the big brother and oldest, I was proud to provide
a higher vantage for a wide-eyed view of the parade.

Every wish is a wish for home;
each breath and every stutter
I only wonder why the houses I lived in
are shacks and lean-tos now in a world
more dangerous than family within
the walls and windows always warmer than winter
outside.

The people are leaving, walking away,
who populated home-days and nighttime respite.
Why are my memories, my paintings finished long ago,
so appealing, and unreachable
than today’s sofa that, I hope,

My children remember as home.

Every new day, I view home;
thank you, blessed sojourn that,
though my yesterday is dream and rotted nails,
tomorrow may be the reality,
the home my Father started ages and parallels,
dimensions and creations
ago.