04 June 2012

Poetry: Expat Trilogy, Part II



Homesick


Hustle, bustle, they’ve lots to do; Banking, museums, even a zoo,
This urban spot, I’m out of place; back in the Rockies is my kind of space
And form with snow on mountain peak; but that is not my life each week.
A mother’s call, the rush hour sound; cacophony is all around
With folks above, beside, below; tobacco stench and odors flow
Into my windows opened wide; Inviting air - not smells - inside.
The downstairs neighbor drunken roars, the upstairs neighbor midnight snore
Construction traffic rumbles by; and overhead Swiss airplanes fly.
So grey and rainy many times; with serenades by church bell chimes,

I long for views of miles away; of sage and summer native hay
Which ripen helped by substream flow; and sunny hours of daylight glow
The granite slant above Green Lake; the rainbow trout which rise to take
their meal on cold, wet, tabletop; the shy pronghorn which run nonstop
and dusky eye of mule deer fawn; the winter tracks outlined at dawn
reveal the path of moose and mouse; the tug of home and hearth and house.

But daydreams such are not to be; I’m “foreign” in a strange country -
Is who I am, my life for now; but then, I’ll take a final bow
And shake the dust from off my shoe; and look at home with eyes anew
The commonplace, the everyday; yet miracles for in their way,
I see my own and understand; the blessings of a native land.

—Jocelyn Moore
October 2011

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