Nomads Going Home Poem by Sonny Rainshine

It is said that the reason
we keep going back
to places from our past
is to find out why we left.

Maybe some bedouin instinct—
an irrepressible urge to fold our tents
and move on when the seasons
begin to change—is embedded
in our nature.

Maybe we can’t
resist seeing what’s around
the curve in the road,
on the other side of the hill,
at the water’s edge
and beyond the water.

Melville called it
that “November in his soul.”
Is it some icy zephyr in our being
that makes us leave our
families and friends
to set off looking for
the promise of April?
for warm southern seas?
for the neon beacons
of the city?

Yet, we reserve
a point of return,
that place on a game-board
marked “GO”—
that place we left,
not fully knowing why,
(maybe it was just our turn)
but still a place to where
we can come home
when the season turns
drizzly and cold again.