Leigh Clifton Goodwin

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.