The morning after we land,
as I maneuver onto the freeway,
head east to the place where I was raised,
I am stunned to see more cars coming at me
then all the vehicles on the small island
where we just spent three tropical weeks.

It has been ever thus on every return
to the place I call home—a slight hitch
in the get-along on re-entry day,
the herky-jerky of where am I again?
mixed with glad to be back,
multiplied by a little sad to leave the place
I’ve just been.

We are odd creatures, we humans,
never quite satisfied with where we are
in space, in time, often longing for
a remembered space-time that cannot
come again. It never can.

But oh, those embedded space-times
lodge deep in our bones, take up their
own space in our cells, infusing us
with something humans call memory,
but the gods know as joy space,
as love buds, as heart crumbs,

the glory in our own back yard
always available to us, even if, down
the road, we forget some or even all
of the details.