When Home

When Home

It isn’t simply the camellias

or dogwoods that draw me home

but a string that pulls,

pushes Appalachia aside

and drags me under the Chattahoochee

with the catfish.

I resurface in the creek down the street,

catch my breath on a blanket of pine needles

on banks of sticky red clay.

When I am home

the honeysuckle is sweet

if taken straight from the vine,

and it’s easy to fold within

like hibiscus and tulips at dusk

while recalling decades of memories

fading like zinnias in winter.

When I am home,

once again a child,

daffodils bow to spring

and four o-clocks wake at last,

sweetly lost somewhere in between

the fringes of the day.

When you are home

you can find out where the

breath blowing on the dandelion

will send you.

You hear voices in every room

as you drift away.

When you are home

you can bloom like a

white magnolia

When home.