The Acorn

The acorn sits on my desk.

Taken years ago from the yard at my parents’ house,

it teeters on its round bulb,

trying to claim purchase on the flat, even surface,

but finds none and compromises.

They say you can never go home again.

That place, those walls, now house another family,

young and growing, setting down roots

of their own. That version of home is now a fading memory

with specters haunting the blueprint of my mind.

My roots are upended, transplanted.

Home is moved, displaced, fallen

from the branches of an oak tree

and shifted, swirling away in the wind,

waiting to roost in some foreign soil.

The feeling of home sleeps within me.

It’s contained, full of possibility and potential,

waiting for the right moment to settle in the earth

and unfurl grasping fingers, to spread out and seize the space

and grow tall and strong and secure.

Until then, I belong nowhere but myself.

I teeter, trying to claim purchase on the flat, even surface

of my life, but find none and compromise.

Home is an idea, a promise, a reclamation,

a strong oak tree sleeping in the shell of an acorn.