Writing from home

sometimes I need to jut
out into the sun
somewhere bright and blooming
where we might consume ourselves
it would be fate to tell us,
"no, and find yourself,"
when all we can do is unwind
here, we're sitting here
and can't stand the fare
we can't return to far-flung places
where we wore our shoes out
looking about for something to find
and sometime soon
I'll have to try

the air at home is full
bursting through the curtains
like ginger incense and sex
I stand before myself and breathe
softly, try to glare
try to tell it "thank you
for making me" but I'm not free
enough to manage that
night wind quiets me
if it comes from the trees
the orchards meet my pulse
as I sit against the sill and
just try to be something

tomorrow morning I think
I will need a vaster sunrise
I can walk free down there
down the road, where I flush
flustered at the facts of being
I could sleep or
I could dream
there used to be a nest
of great horned owls, who
lived in the trees
my body beats softly
I can hear their cries still
my window feels frail
as a gate to everything

this smell is what
every inexplicable thing has
become; my years lived
flowers grown or shells found
you know I love the sea
and fleeing my own waves
I'm bound and have demons to contend
understand, understand
I need you with your troubles
and I want you
who might see me with eyes
and might see this room
in which I've written
and loved and curled in
and feel somehow whole
come home, come home

---

I'm home, in California. Finally. I'm in love with my state.