Poems of Hope and Despair
Something Like Homesickness
I was the girl
who roamed the orchards
and perched on rooftops,
the girl who slept
under dwarf mulberry trees
and dug tunnels to reach
the Silk Road to China.
And here I have learned
the map of this city
by its fruit trees:
I picked olives in Mitchell Park
to cure in forty days,
I picked quince and persimmons
in a backyard on Georgia,
and the old fig tree
between two houses on Maybell
gave me all I needed.
On Mothers Day
I planted roses in my yard;
knowing they run their roots
deep and even deeper
in the times of drought.
And still the smells of pearly
summer dusks fill me
with something like homesickness.
No longer for a handful of dirt
or a piece of land to belong to,
but for the spirit of the girl I was.
The girl who wanted,
who imagined,
and who dug.
She was relentless.
:: Design by Waterman
:: Logo woodcut by Barbara Leventhal-Stern
