Home is Here

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

In the black walnuts, newly leafing, warblers flit

and swish about, testing the age of my ear

and long-term memory. American redstart, northern parula,

yellow-throated. Oh, and there’s a blue-grey

gnatchatcher scit-scatting. Wiggle, left, right, left, right.
I wonder: What is this place to them? Do they have a name for it?

Home? Not home?

On that day when they all decide to come northward,

does one of them suddenly chip, “Let’s go home!” Or, is that 
something they sing in sonnet form before heading South?

If only I was more fluent in little bird languages.

After considerable pondering,

I decide these might be migratory bodhisattvas:

beings who have learned to live exquisitely in the moment.

Home is here. Home is there. It’s a nest, a branch,

a piece of sky – with or without clouds. Maybe

it’s the edge of a stream when taking a drink or a bath, or

a ceramic vessel that some kind soul placed in their garden

because they love brightly colored things that fly and give

sweet verse.

Maybe I am over thinking this.

Cerulean. Worm-eating. Black-throated green.

Naughty cowbird.

Here. In this tree. For a moment.

Maybe I could be present too.

Totally.

Home.

© 2013-2015/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (www.hiraethpress.com)

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