I am home, just woken.
I’ve done my morning ablutions,
and take my first sip
of steaming coffee.
I put off the vacuuming for
another day,
I wonder what to do with
all the fresh mint, how to cook
with sesame leaf.
There is indigo dye
to experiment with,
the grey sky is readying for rain.
Last weekend,
when we went to the mountains
in a mountainous prefecture,
it was another sky, cerulean,
allowing the dazzle of sun through
so that everything, including
ourselves, glittered
like jewels.
We came upon a pond,
on one side of which
a gaggle of retired men
with the longest camera lenses
I’ve seen were at attention, silent
and stealthy, waiting
for a kingfisher to appear.
On the far end of the pond
was a house in the traditional style,
large and cavernous, gaping holes
on the roof, and it was hard to
imagine, on this sunny day
how wet and cold it would be
would be most days of the year,
if it were still inhabited.
Today, the house was flanked by
trees of every kind and colour,
like the four seasons decided
to hold congress in the
fractal rays of this one afternoon,
so that we could delight in
this fold in time and its
embrace of all our bleeding
emotions and sun-drying experiences,
as if to give every single one of
us visitors the warmth and
liberty to say it loud:
I am home.
