Andrew Garland

Homecoming -- A.E. Stallings

It was as if she pulled a thread,
Each time he saw her, that unraveled
All the distance he had traveled
To sleep at home in his own bed,
Or sit together in a room
Spinning yarns of monsters, wars,
The hours counted by the chores.
He loved to watch her at the loom:
The fluent wrists, the liquid motion
Of small tasks not thought about,
The shuttle leaping in and out,
Dolphins sewing the torn ocean.

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

At night this quiet covers me,
grown ragged on the center seam,
dividing all its history.

I touch the remnants-finely spun,
familiar pieces handed down
from chest to chest for far too long

to still remember what was cut,
that it was once a blouse, a skirt
she wore the night he took her heart.

I touch the fields I thought I knew
and smooth the places healed into
each other, at the ridges sewn

with careful secrets mouthed for all
the years she couldn't tell a soul.

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.