The goodby of a thousand leagues.
Where is land’s end
for the voices calling her
in that place called India?
A walk in the moonlight.
A call inside her soul.
They are here.
She can smell their clothes.
Parents who held her hand,
when they were not ill.
When their family was complete,
an untorn rug,
a chant that hummed in harmony.
She is returning,
changed,
transformed.
The furniture of her soul
rearranged in the house of her mind.
No more incense.
The air of Ohio,
at once so new,
a marmalade of scent,
now the breath inside her.
To help her mother and father
in their illness.
Life falling on the floor.
Pain to be swept up.
And time
to be parceled
between the edges of a world,
too big for eyes to see,
too small,
to account for love.