Sadafuli

When does a house cease to be a home?
It is a mere shell, but it was much more
to me, to us, it was....
How do I say it?
How can words capture all the things it was?
But let me try, I will try because
I must
before the feeling is lost, and the dust
has settled on these tumbling thoughts.
That street we played in, those pebbles and potholes
Treasure map, field, playground, it played many roles
And many a day spent in breaking the rules
The laughter, the sleuthing, the vagaries of youth
Sitting by the door we whiled away the hours
protected from view by the leaves and the flowers
Bell flower white, I still see you in my dreams
I remember the climbers with fronds dusky green
I remember the dialogues we had on those steps
the gossip, the discourse, the disclosed secrets
The wandering fakir who stood there and spoke
of his world and ours and castles of smoke
In from the door to the wide white-floored hall
Every chip in the tiles, every crack I recall
I loved them all.
Ghosts in everything here, all the moments that were,
and a bed that will always belong to Her.
Four rooms where I talked and raged and
slept and cried and laughed my way through
eighteen years of my life.
What a time it has been!
It was our space, just ours, to live and breathe
To be without thinking, in joy and in grief
but now it's time to move on and away
Goodbye dear house, you will be missed,
You were home for years, a lovely one,
and you will be a memory for years to come.

To be Human

What does it mean to be human?
They asked themselves once
Long ago, and found
No answer, many answers,
and drowned
in more questions, all seeking
a sense of clarity
But this was a dusty place then,
with dusty things all around
Coherence was a rarity,
a luxury to grow into
And grow into it they did
spouting fire, spitting fear,
building love to the far frontier
In growing they forgot
the question
that once drove them onward
to the bounds of their cramped spaces,
out of dust and into space -
What does it mean to be human?

Look at them now,
gazing from the peaks they
thrashed and blasted and
gasped and clawed their way to.
They should sense it,
waiting
The long arm of Reason ready
to fan away the dust and,
finally,
really see the Universe
waiting,
arms outstretched to guide them through.
They don't see it, they don't look
They fan fires and shoot bullets and
dig their way down,
down the mountain they overtook.
Turn their back to the infinite
and huddle in the bounds of their bubbles
No longer wondering,
perhaps forgetting...

What should it mean to be human?
Not this.