I Remember Home

I Remember Home

Why, I ask, does the earth not shrink to a point?
Why at first, did this wide sky lure the heart?
All around are strange people, strange words:
Some slide over the heart, others pierce it.
On these waving words flows the heart’s vessel,
Which finds no shore.

Whomever I meet I duly greet, smiling, but what lips affirm
In “I know you,” the heart denies with “I don’t.”
I move on those waves
And find no shore.

Why does this earth not shrink to a point?
What a smile, my sister’s smile, my brother laughing,
She delighting in his wordss,
Delighting in our parent’s laughter !
Yet time flows on, the shore a spectacle.
I find no shore.

Why does th earth not shrink to a point?
Perhaps this cycle lies outside of fate; why
Did this wide sky once lure the heart?

The brief life of all things flows on; and I
Watch each one, smiling, laughing,
Weeping.
Watching, I am silent.
I find no shore.

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