the home place

some folks say
it’s where
when you have to go there,
they have to take you.

So that’s not wrong
so far as it goes
but it’s a bit unkind, maybe —
unprodigal.

I say
it’s where
when you want to go there
so badly you’ll give up your easy
anonymous wallow,
pick up responsibility again
put it on like a clean shirt,
accept the recognition
of your place in the sweet slow
mechanics of family —

it’s where
when you want to go there
so much you’ll give up
lifting nothing,
to regain the quiet beating weight
that’s everything —

they’ll bear you joyously
over the familiar threshold,
and only say
we’re glad.

We’re glad you’re here at last.

Leigh Clifton Goodwin has put in time as a bartender, a maid, a shipwreck victim and a very reluctant banker.  She has had poems published in Crab Creek Review, Drash: Northwest Mosaic, and A Sense of Place: The Washington State Geospatial Poetry Anthology. In early 2011, Leigh accidentally began writing a poem-journal of the cycle of a Seattle year, and has been observing developments with interest.