Going Home

Where did she come from?
Where was she going?
We wondered
As she wandered through our manicured neighborhood,
This disheveled woman in ragged clothes,
A torn bedroll tied to her back,
Her long stringy hair matted and dirty
Like the fur of an old cat too feeble to clean itself.

She shuffled along the sidewalk in the growing twilight,
Past a startled family getting into their shiny white car,
On their way to the new restaurant,
The wide-eyed boy and girl struck dumb
By this alien intruder.

She did not know where she was.
She often didn’t know,
But on this day something called her,
Called her toward the mountains,
The eternal mountains glowing purple in the darkening sky.
Something pulled her through this foreign place,
Past these homes with white-faced windows,
Staring,
Staring,
All staring out at her.

She was returning
And she would know when she got there,
She would know it was the right place,
The place that called her,
Called her past the houses filled with the safe yellow light,
Past the houses filled with the busy sound of happy televisions,
Past the dutiful dog walkers on unbroken sidewalks,
All the way to the underbrush near the hillside trail
Where she would find a private place,
Unroll her sleeping bag,
Watch the sky change from blue violet to black,
Read the twinkling messages of stars,
Receive the omen of the rising amber moon,
Hear the rhythmic hooting of the gatekeeper owl,
Shiver from the sharp penetration of cold and damp,
And dream,
Her eyelids falling,
And dream,
Her breathing slowing.

At last,
At last,
Home again.


~ Russ Allison Loar
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