In this damp afternoon
you long for home,
and it seems so far away —
removed in space
or else in time

And the memory
(or is it imagination?)
of walking into a place
and feeling you can relax
since you belong here,
since you are loved,
is as palpable as thirst

It can feel like
we don’t understand
our place in time, in this time,
with these currents of culture
so profoundly disconnected

The big trees that thrive here,
trunks heavy and mossy,
leaves fluttering, turning,
have their own sense of time and place
that we could take shelter in
if we knew how.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 6, 2018