Homecoming (귀향)

By | 22 May 2011

You land with gold over the Red Centre still in your head.
The road taking you home to the sea is a lizard flattened in the heat.
The light does the talking, the light splinters all over the place.

Who lives here? Who comes into the leaf-lit room?
An ancient traveller is led by a warm lovely hand into a garden.
Look, look, look, says blessedness, before he eats and sleeps.

One bird then another bird keeps him afloat and awake—
lilypond mind, the lapping of silence, old waters that are deep,
a sleep at the bottom of the ocean, sleep drowning memory.

Later the same day that is night he wakes into silence.
There, nearby and faraway are the loved ones speaking,
the right words in their throat, cooing into his speechlessness.

Later the same day it seems to be the real sea he is in,
salting the odd word, washing him back into blazes of time.
Rediscovering his freestyle under the Turneresque bushfire sky

he swims—that’s it, you swam into the aesthetic of homecoming!
They have not changed, they are only more beautiful your loved ones.
You kiss the return, you find specs of ash on the pillow.

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