It wasn’t the soaring mountain peaks perpetually capped with snow
Nor the green and purple lights speeding across the night sky

It was not the round pebbles and jagged rocks under my bare feet
The shrieks and joyful splashes of water, the gathering storm

Not the smell of rotting leaves and mushrooms, with the frost slowly descending
Nor the yellow-headed coltsfoot peeking stubbornly through the mud still cracked with ice

While the winter, defeated, roars through the ditches joining streams and rivers

Eventually
Finding its way
Home

It is the taste of wood and paint as I chew on the railing of my bunk bed
My mother’s voice drifting up to me, seeing me safely into sleep

It is the bark of my aunt’s dog turning into excited whimpers
As he, like Argos, recognises me through the mist of years

It’s the lull in conversation after a big family dinner
Before someone gets out a guitar or a pack of cards

Knowing that there is a place existing in the spaces between us, where I belong

And I, eventually
Find my way
Home