What is home?

This past year, I traveled in search of it, moved everything I own into someone else’s, and buried the only creature on this planet that felt like it for sure. 

I’ve had to scrap all my old definitions and start over. 

I recently asked a client to create an image of the “home” she wanted to come back to within herself. And with one of my teachers, I am embarking on a yearlong program called “homecoming.” 

I want to answer this question for myself. I don’t think I’m done. But here’s a poem where I tried.

Home to me

I open the window

to a wave of warm, wood-baked air,

a smell that invites me to breathe. 

That

feels like home

to me.

Sunlit leaves

that special color green.

Salted air

where the Ocean scrubs me clean.

Her Majesty Herself,

wet and wild queen,

sometimes reflects the sky,

sometimes reflects the trees,

sometimes reveals the mud,

hidden underneath.

Fresh, raw dirt

like buried treasure

my hands both love to squeeze.

I’ll always be collecting rocks, 

the way I still hug trees.

The delight of seeing bunny hops,

will never, ever leave.

The seams are raw,

the cloth unfinished,

but this blanket 

holds my dreams.

And so I can rest,

remembering Earth’s palette

is painted all over me.

This week, I’m channeling Mother Earth. I wrote this poem craving groundedness, and ended up uncovering a wild, living spirit. Poetry uses the masculine tool of words to carve out the mystery of feminine space. From the security of structure, we can venture into the unknown and summon the muse.

I have a floor.

There are boards underneath me.

Wood. Cut from the tree.

Grass in crisp, fresh sheets.

Naked dirt streaks 

through my hair.

Rolling ‘round wild.

Spinning my spine’s spiral cage.

I stretch toward the sky

Legs unfolding in waves.

Ankles steer the flow

Guiding my leafy green toes

I press into the Earth 

with all my rebel weight.

And She 

presses back.