Turning Home

for Amy and Jeb

September 6, 2014 

That story about a boy she knew

when they were young,

writing his name in cursive,

wishes breathed over birthday candles
renumbered year by year, 

like houses we pass on highways

holding life in those rooms,

meals and laughter and song—

there were endings, 

lives that rose and rose,

not the expected or planned

but what came instead,

spoken in the backwards glance

 

where we find the constant, a first self

before variations overlaid the theme

like copies of a lost original

stored in diaries gathering dust. 

Here is the music we danced to,

melodies that linger after the music’s gone,

the way love has lingered

in the silence of time. 

We want essential sounds that still make sense,

to be stories in themselves

the way we’re always telling stories

like old movies 

about a boy who holds her people, her street,

familiar and known—

the way we’re always and always

turning home.

 

                                                                                                     Cheryl Emerson
                                                                                                                            In gratitude
                                                                                                                            for friends like family