a thing foreign

There are bells here in Evora, the little town where I live in the east of Portugal. Bells that remind me of the trains I heard back home. 

Home. A thing foreign to my tongue, a concept that escapes me.

Home was never the house I grew up in or the house by the lake that straddled Texas and Oklahoma that my grandparents expanded from a one room cabin. Home was never the dwellings or house I shared with my husband of sixteen years, the one I tried everything to hold on to when we parted ways. Home is not my father's house by the lake in the too far north of the northwest.

Though I think of these places fondly, if I ever thought a place Home, it was the little house on Loree where my girls had a yard for nine years. Where they met the neighboring pups at the fence. Where one barked at the rumble of cars passing and the other sat still in the grass, lording over her domain. 

Perhaps Home is where we three all grew old, that place where my loves last breaths were drawn, where life took a turn and I chose to leave.

In my little town of Evora, I surround myself with nature and color, create days of health and and constantly discover beauty in the cobbled streets I trespass. Still, I wonder if I'll ever find Home  - again?Or if I had it at one point and didn't know.

"home, where my love lies waiting silently for me..." ~ Homeward Bound, Simon and Garfunkel

caprica

shallow she breathes then deep

such minor results for so great an investment

happy when she goes along (interests align)

jabs and stabs when she knows what she knows

what she wants what she will

won't budge when cajoled

shallow she breathes then deep

tired of investing 

neverwas

parts assembled

or a burl gnarled

turned and shaped

by the world sharp

by the girl she was

by the woman she is

into a thing polished

but still at heart...

looking past looking

through applying

preconceived notions

of shoulds and wants

like epoxy poured 

to reshape into what? 

a thing she neverwas

little voice cooling

the voices of a past that 

nudge; the dead crooning to a 

soul that recalls a life 

unrealized; a little voice cooling

squeak and shuffle

Laundry is done almost daily on my narrow lane in Evora. Across the way, two ladies lean out two separate windows of two separate second floor abodes. I see them rarely, one in her shift not bothering to acknowledge me, the other with a scowl when I first peered out.  The source of the squeaking and shuffling was found to be their lines of laundry set out to dry overnight, the heave-ho of their bare arms as they draw each item in to put away.

“nothing to hold on to”

consumed in

passion and grief

overlong then

naught but

existence and being

unseen truly, deeply 

all along as-is

“Once inside you’re afraid they’d find…” ~ Cowboy Junkies, Ring on the Sill