Home (Random poem by Iris)

Home 10/28/08

I think I understand
why my Father ended up
in New Mexico again

after the broken childhood,
the battered memories…

military stints
in Germany, Oklahoma,
Virginia, Korea…

I think I can finally
relate
to the decision he made
to live out the rest of his days
in the sun

Having been raised
in the heat and the wind,
nowhere else seems home enough
unless the sun burns my skin
my favorite color red
and pierces through
my closed eyelids

Having seen that sun
make its grand exit
bleeding vivid color into the dust
on the horizon
thousands of times
in glory that whispers
the existence of a God

and watched the stars hang
innumerable
in the cloudless night
so cold
the heat is almost
forgotten

How can anywhere else
compare to that

when I decide
what earth to leave
my bones?