Friday, 2 June 2017

Two pieces about Home

1.

These arms always strive to seek those faraway others
on this day like so many, they sway out of reach in the breeze
two singularities adrift in the cosmos
the unseen umbilical intact but stretched and stretching
the world continually conspiring to break the bond
these arms ache to keep

© Sheila Ash 2nd June 2017

2.

Home, that incongruous, transitory state of fixedness within the chaos of continual movement
where the heart is
the point of all returns
that place of peace
where the body rests for a moment
before moving on
relentlessly searching
for what? home?

Its physical manifestation - paid for bricks and mortar
grants permission to feel grounded in a place
to be rooted.
A true north island in the ever changing sea of life
flinging you this way and that
bombarding you with no-choice choices
manoeuvring you as part of some grand strategy
orchestrated by unseen hands of unheard of Masters.
The economic pawn sacrificed at the altar of the High Knight rests unsatisfied.

I grew out of and away from childhood homes
the warm security of loving parental enclosures
safeguarding
yet restricting, limiting.
Nonetheless if asked to paint a picture of home
it may well be one of mum and dad around the fire
my comfortable, cosy bed, its thick feather quilt
holding back the night,
thwarting the cold and the ghosts of dreamland’s darkness.

But there’s a call, a song
heard under every star, every constellation
across foreign lands of settled scores
The magnetism that cannot be ignored
reaches my far-flung shore
enticing this émigré to cross oceans
dragging me across dodgy dominions
as irresistible as the allure of winged sirens
beckoning all homeward for the new day.

© Sheila Ash 2nd June 2017

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