Long Way Home Long Way Home Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Walking down an alien street a miserable day in February,
thought he was dreaming asked what am I doing here.
The buildings and people are not as he remembered as
a child. He tried to cross the street but cars kept coming.
A woman took his arm and helped him to cross.
They told him he had lived here for twenty years but
told him in English as he didn't understand the language
these strange people spoke. Tired he sat down at
pavement café, a man asked him what he wanted… he didn't
now so the kind man brought him coffee.
I must find my way home, he said to himself, but I don't know
where it is. Then he remembered that his mother was dead,
he had been asleep, and as he slept the world changed and
he was lost in a future that was not his.