You Can Never Go Home Again
Its been forty years or so
But the dreams still remain
And, in them, I enter happiness.
I race home from school
And burst through the gates.
Where
My father
As always
Awaits with an ever ready smile.
The sun shines behind me
And his crisp ironed shirt does not prevent him
From lifting me up in his arms.
My father does not fear wrinkles..
I speak
In my sleep, a foreign tongue
It bursts from my lips
Like an overripe mango.
And,
I awake, remembering...
I was there again.
Now
After forty years
I walk over the threshold
To a home I remember from my dreams.
I must contain my emotions
Seal them in for I will burst.
I have traveled over land and sea
To stand here.
Perhaps
I was hoping as my feet touched this familiar earth,
I would go back in time...
I half expected my father's ghost to greet me.
Cigarette casually held between pearly white teeth.
His arms ready to embrace the son
He left so suddenly.
The rug was swept up from under me and
My lunges had the breath sucked out from them.
I was hoping to regain some lost oxygen.
My composure slips,
Cracks
Like these old walls that seem to have held the
Same memories I remember.
It's as if they knew I'd come back.
This was all they had left to give
And they waited for me.
They too had been dreaming of better days.
Long ago we lost a lot
The day my father died so suddenly.
I held the dirt from the courtyard in my hands and
Inhaled for his sent,
Caressed the iron gates as if I were touching
My long gone fathers face
And let the tears finally come.
poem by Rabia Minhas
Added by Poetry Lover
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