HOME?

Just back from a 3-week road trip in England, with brief forays into both Scotland and Wales, I find myself questioning the concept of home, a place where one feels one belongs. 

Born in Ireland, now thirty years resident in the Channel Islands, I don't regard either place a home: one was my birthplace, the other 'the place where I live now'.   

I wrote this poem, in sonnet-style although not properly a sonnet, a few months ago and think it aptly sums up my idea of home.

                           

HOME

The Eskimo or Inuit,

it’s said, have many words for snow,

a lexicon describing it

in all it’s strange grandeur, although

they have no word for home, it seems.

For those who live nomadic lives,

home is a place beyond their dreams

and no concept of it survives 

amongst their harsh Arctic regimes.

A static man, I find the word

‘home’ one whose meaning subtly shifts:

a comfort but at times absurd,

a tombstone over which snow drifts.

For me, home is not here or there,

home is where love is. Anywhere.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/