Home

When my kids used to ask,
at the sight of me
by the front door,
suitcase in hand:

"¿A dónde va a ir?"

I would reply: "A mi casa."

And they would retort,
reproachfully,
with all the hard-won wisdom
of a wind-swept, paper-cut childhood:

"Esta es su casa."

And they were right, of course.

They usually are.

What is home?

Where is mine?

Bolivia, la bella, 

my sisters, our kids, 

and our golden, fluffy dog,
are certainly, lovingly, home.

As I discovered last summer, 

home is also any one of our communities, 

anywhere in the world.

It is any place of worship, 

especially those where I can visit You, 

Personally, 

and it is, very especially,
a little white Meeting House, 

on the sun-bleached, 
southern coast of Massachusetts,

and the Friends that gather there.

I am home whenever I can span

the abyss of space, time,
growth and change,

on the tattered wings
of the tangled internet -
that comforting latticework of connections:
ties that bind and fill the heart,
though not to the brim,
as does the clasp of a hand
or a tightly-held embrace.

Home is, 

and always will be

a lake, 

a little swath of mountain, 

a boisterous dining room,
exploding with song, 

an old, grey barn, 

and seven little screened-in bungalows, 

where I learned 
to see You in Your newness,
to be my best self, 

and to discover the dearest of friends, 

who are really, actually, family.

Home was, and is still, 

a square little house on Erdman Avenue. 

It is the family that waits for me there, 

and the stretching arms 

of those with whom I am bound
by ancestral threads, 

and by a shared, first Love.

Home is wherever Your Heart is, 

which is where mine is, too.

Where the tangible figures 

of those who went along the path,

up ahead and out of sight,

await a homecoming

that eye has not seen

and ear has not heard.

I´m going home, now.

Pero, lo prometo:
volveré.