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Open Poetry #39
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arbpoet
Junior Member
since 2006-11-22
Posts 38


0 posted 2006-12-22 02:33 AM



A life’s journey spent at many unfamiliar
places.
A childhood lived amongst the shadows
of strange walls.

Ears often hearing the echoes of empty
rooms.
Soon moving on to another unfamiliar
place.

A whole life spent moving place to place.
Never staying long for the heart to belong.

Once there existed a home.
A home familiar to the heart.

A tiny white house with a cement porch
and metal posts.
Small rooms with wooden floors.
An old swinging screen door.

A weeping willow and a giant sycamore
that were familiar friends.

A humble place that was not much
compared to other homes.

To a child’s eyes and heart.
It was the only constant in a life of
hardship.

This place was the inspiration of
childhood imagination.
This home sowed the seeds of a poet’s
heart.
The only home ever known.

Years ago it became the empty echo of a
childhood’s end.

To stand without life.
To be tumbled down and tossed away.
Only the sycamore is left as a relic of
dreams now fulfilled.

That child is now grown.
She still dreams of that old place.
The heart still not belonging to any place.

In her dreams that only home still exists.
In her dreams the only place to belong.

Can your heart belong to one place so
completely that when that home is lost,
you will mourn over it like a lost friend?

That you will continue to dream of that
place all your life?

© Copyright 2006 arbpoet - All Rights Reserved
Roniece Dawson-Bruce
Member Ascendant
since 2000-01-29
Posts 5689
Sydney, Australia
1 posted 2006-12-22 03:07 AM


ahhh yes....I know this longing for a childhood dream..  nicely penned my friend
RDB

LeeJ
Member Patricius
since 2003-06-19
Posts 13296

2 posted 2006-12-22 06:04 AM


I believe it can....by turning those memories from longing to those of good times...

beautiful write

passing shadows
Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577
displaced
3 posted 2006-12-22 07:31 AM


I think about my childhood home all the time

and I miss it a lot

Midnitesun
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Empyrean
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647
Gaia
4 posted 2006-12-22 09:10 AM


Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt write. Yes, I do believe a HOME can, whereas a HOUSE cannot. There is a tremendous difference, and it's all in the FEELINGS that become attached.
I enjoyed this poem very much!
I love weeping willows and sycamores!

arbpoet
Junior Member
since 2006-11-22
Posts 38

5 posted 2006-12-22 11:34 PM


Thank you for your comments. I have moved over 30 times during my lifetime, mostly as a child. The only constant place that felt like home was my grandparent's place. Their house was over a hundred years old. The sycamore tree was also over a hundred years old. It was planted by a teacher and students when my grandparent's house was a schoolhouse. Although the house is no longer there, I think the sycamore is still there. I have not drove by there in four years.
Midnitesun
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Empyrean
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647
Gaia
6 posted 2006-12-23 09:58 PM


Will you write more about this special home?
Perhaps, the FEEL of the Sycamore tree bark? or the smells of cookies or pies baking?
Wishing you a pleaseant holiday and fine new year!

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