Waking up, it was quiet in the small home
I made,
of modest yet precious items.
Bright petals ripen to life in the sunlight
and every unanimated thing rests for use, mine.
This is new, still.
Home used to be full of choices that weren’t my own.
Where I grew up, it smelled like butter and onions cooking on a low flame,
a memory: in the next room a soft cat with big eyes stretches bed-long on a wild floral quilt.
The sounds were not like the quilt, the cat, the butter and onions.
Sounds of frustration and lost time echoed loud from wall to wall,
impossible to contain.
I worked to feed my imagination
hope for the word Home,
as I closed my ears.
Pinch me-
My home sounds like coffee dripping hot into the pot and
“River, river have mercy”
and sometimes book pages turning in my hands.
At a point along the way here, my home became
an image of experimentation
with peace as a standard of living.
Here, where I rest my head, I open the single window to fear.
A nun of the order Practice.
Watch bad things drop, fall, tumble away. I am home.
I close my door to new sadness,
light a candle for darkness,
smoke out hidden ambitions from the corners: mine. I am home.
Kaitlin Sansoucie 