Going Home

Going Home

Going home is a melancholy journey.
Thousands of miles over oceans.
Back into the warm  
Autumn morning of Englands countryside.
This is the old country farmhouse we were all brought up in.
My mother me my siblings.
The warmth of the late Indian summer day
steam shadows over the old orchard.
The old house is full of ghost
walking around its lichen-covered stone.
I can see my mother sat in the shade 
a basket of fruit in her lap.
Awaiting her oven and pastry dough.
The apples have fallen now.
The garden a wild place with raspberry brambles
black Currants and gooseberries
Gripping each other in a tangled fury.
As hard as we once held onto each other
So long ago.
The drone of the feeding bees 
Have a happy sound of plenty.
The grapes sucked dry of their sweetness.
Their overloaded bodies filled with nectar.
The only intrusion a pair of dragonflies
Bouncing In carefree harmony in the scented air.
I pick up the bushel basket 
that mom used to collect her fruit.
I hold it close to my heart.
And see her smiling again.
In the corner a small scruffy boy
with an even scruffier dog 
eats an over-ripe  pear.
From the littered ground under the tree.
It is only another ghost
But I think it is me.

Just got back to Canada from a visit to England
Jude