land where i was born

land where i was born,
i was anxious in the face of return
couldn’t quite call it a homecoming
convinced you might have spidered me
wound me with doubt
round and round
dizzied and spanned
unable to leave whole

but, land where i was born,
the strings i’d spliced and fancied
barely tightened to embrace

of course I found warm places
spaces i found in the fur-whorls of a dog
in the molten exhalation of summer
a handful of minutes and memories and ease
who flowed between kith and kin
like beer in a January-scraped backyard
not a tug, though
not a flurry on the line
to the web of the soul, nor to the home
who, in eighteen months
has me cocooned
under older eyes and arches

land, while you let me follow your highways, your backroads
you lent only a familiarity that steered the car
which i had to give that back with the keys
i tried to talk to you about it
though our common language was skewed
from disuse
you were impatient, dismissive,
aloof
changeable
and at the end you shrugged
adamant the only thing
unrecogniseable
was me

so this leaves me
at odds with myself
the outsider, the other
now i’m not sure
if i was ever welcome
if ever i felt at ease
enough to call you home,
land where where i was born,
and even as i wait
where planes shudder in crosswinds
to blow away from your flank
clipped threads trailing
tangling with those of the crowd here
carrying their land of birth
knotted always inside them
you are already a ‘there’ to me