Home. Poem by Thomas Bates

- and the sound of the rain
was foreign but friendly to
me and now:

after a stretch of quiet conversation,
murmuring in our mouths
i felt the tug
the sting
of looser associations, bright,
with the land and streams
that may in fact be memories
- familiar faces
pulled in silence with the cold,
inhaled wind
out of darkness.

(jealousies and screams.)

out of the darkness
from the cold,
and into the warmth;
a knowing which brought about
a humbling sense
of
peace, to the few of us
who walked twelve miles in one anothers' shoes.
comradery stood welcomed -
in blurred seconds of understanding
shared
in the warm light of missionary flame.