A Home within a Poem

Home

here love lives,

in the voice of mother, the strength of father.

In the eyes of a child’s wonder,

at the family table or a million miles away.

In hurt and fear and death

When it all gets scattered and battered about

and all we yearn for is

A place for everyone, and everyone in their . . .

Place

there must be holy holy in itself

but beyond it a place square, rounded

whole shaped spaced sided up sized down

around somewhere around here, there

backward, forward, inside, outside the door

window, escape hatch, under the floor

boards, blackboards, board walk

don’t run out to sea, beyond the waves,

clouds, sunset, east of the moon,

the big ancient moon, beyond the isles

tides and shores, beyond the here, now

before them thar hills a one, some

small little nest back way back,

finally in Eden, a tree, barely

reachable place to get some rest.

Her place brings us back home.

Place by Susan Allison, Inaugural Poet Laureate 2015-2018

Middletown, Conn.

Reprinted by permission