The call of the wild geese I ignored
as I tried be someone I never was.
Stability and Wisdom were the false fronts,
As I made my terrible anchor.
Eventually I broke free to drift on the currents
and traveled in many directions seeking
something else I was missing in being that person
Until that sunrise over Mount Ogden.
Within a year I was along that range
still in my shell, but moving at least
twice a year across the Wyoming deserts
Between the Salt Flats and the Plains.
But times turned hard on me,
Finances too tight to heed the call of blood
to return even annually and gather with my kin
ignorance feeding the lies I told myself.
For friendships there, and better jobs that came
eventually again down the road to my wandering way
I stayed until homesickness made me lose my way
my temper, my focus, my dreams.
Like a screaming air raid siren's
Wednesday morning sound check
The call of home rolled through my soul
breaking the chains I had made there as well.
Because of the long denial of that call
I tossed aside friendships, a job,
and maybe something else more important
to return to my native terrain.
The sounds were not as I remembered
Once I had returned to that place.
Songbirds bothered me, the weather was wrong
and the cries of raptors spoke of some place else.
I had come back to find home was no longer home
the family that loved me did not know me
and friends had all moved on to their own desires
Leaving me again feeling alone and confused.
I fight that feeling I made a mistake,
Knowing somehow something good came of it.
Yet admitting it was still a mistake
And I regret what I threw away to find home.
Now the call of the geese
every fall and spring as they migrate
reminds me that perhaps I was wrong
And home is a person as well as a place.
Dec2010 - Dyfedd Rex
