Homecoming

Ancestors

built his mind,

a mighty fortress

that pushed her kind

from their place.

Mother and her children,

darkly left in hung silence

to pack up shame.

The heavy lifting of boxes

and things

disassemble their

inner sanctuary.

Making room for the new?

Laughter and song,

compassionate musings,

sweet moments

of joy gifted from an ageless

humanity of forgotten sins,

now boxed up infinitum for her

to once again,

untethered,

traverse the slipstream of

this life.

Beads of her tears

and their sweat,

futile droplets

of fragile hope,

infinitely lost to the

jarring, clanging,

banging

of no longer

belonging.

Those brawny blokes with muscly arms,

tanned sinewy legs, strong coffee,

packed lunch and

not a care

in this world,

help move her

despair elsewhere.

She wonders whether men

with packed lunches

stray in their

hungry minds.

They say it was her.

She says nothing,

taking comfort

in quiet knowing.

Hers is a dignity

birthed from persecution.

Her and her kin

with their perfectly oddly paired dogs

say a few too many final goodbyes

to their beloved chooks,

sacred land

and once vibrant bustling home,

now a strangely sterile

brick box of

pristine porcelain

and empty hallway echoes.

Together, huddled in that

packed-to-the-brim car of theirs

they pause to greet

the magnitude of

farewell

with the humming stillness

of time in reckoning.

Soft rays lead up, and up

to a splendidly warm

afternoon sun.

Its brightness

bake their salty wet cheeks,

and gently tend

forgiving hearts.

A unison of Wayfinders

grasping, remembering,

yearning for

homecoming

on the day they left.