home at last

I Used To Live Here (A Sort Of Homecoming)

scavenging collapsed tent revivals
in hopes of divining redemption
along the sawdust trail,
but finding only
a patch of shaded grass
where parents will lie,
old soldier of an oak
standing guard over their
as yet marked graves

beyond this saddening vista,
the house of cards they built
where choices became chances,
where ruins became risks
for a youngest son swept adrift
by a colossus flood
of sullied vows and superstition myths

washing him away down a river of tales, some told,
some buried in the banks crawled to salvation shores
where breath-catch, water-cough, dirt-spit, mud idols died
just in time to kneel before,
"i used to live here."

deliverance and damnation
in a father's failing chorus
to a mother's dying Te Deum

a hymn for her,
a psalm for a son

no longer drowning in doubt,
but wading in reconciliation

waiting all those years,
weighting all those years