But I have

I am homesick for a place I have never been, 

a place I have never seen. 

Yet, as I wander on the thin map of my life, 

there are places where home finds me, 

there are ways I make it home. 

I remember a table at Stone Oven -

the old Stone Oven -

a pad of paper, a smooth pen, 

her whole self  listening. 

I remember a song sung in a simple church.  

A man, a guitar, three hundred

eyes looking at me as I spoke from 

the second beat of my heart, 

the one that pushes out truth. 

I remember the first time 

I kissed her in the spring outside.

Her lips warm, her face warm, 

her smell like the garden she was planting. 

I remember a day in the pouring rain, 

I remember a toddler wobbling toward me, 

I remember a bridge over a small creek. 

I remember a catch, a car, a star dotted sky. 

I remember six women appearing to circle the bed, 

I remember the last tear I saw on my mother's face. 

I do not have your silent husband, 

I will never have your daughter, your grown son, 

your baby Maya, your new parish to pastor. 

I will never know the still face of a younger sister, 

the vibration of a cello beneath my fingertips. 

But I have a home out there 

that keeps trying to find me, 

who keeps extending her soft hand, 

that faithfully remains, 

so familiar, so patient, 

so willing to wait for me.