GOING BACK

GOING BACK


Go back the way you came in./ The field will have you back.---Hannah Stephenson, “The Field”, The Storialist, 05-09-12



There, not very far from here, is a clear way
of pointing it out, if you were from there.
But where is it? The field that takes you back
whenever, however you return, if you care.

That one caveat, if you care, how easy is it
to find one good reason to come back when
going back means knowing you were never
expected, nor welcome? Why return broken?

It is another world out there, but is it home?
When you left town, you swore: I will look
back only in anger. Out there, you ached
for those sundowns when you ran through

the groves, jumped into mud pools, burnt
twigs thrown your way by the village coquette
who promised she will grow old with you, die
in your arms, give you a hundred sons or more.

You even wrote songs for her. Never got sung.
There, not very far from here, lies fallow this
field among the lilies. It will be there for you
whenever, however, you want to lie in it. Again.


---Albert B. Casuga
05-09-12