Breaking for Home

image by carl & racine erland

Breaking for Home


Chill cloudy morning blanketed
my wistful searching in gray light.
Alone I stood again, and heard it
before I saw it, the honkonk isolated,
not echoed by a streamer, a vee of others,
the seemingly necessary pushers and pullers
that would direct him where they wish to go.
Low, so low I could see his determined eyes,
he did his own pushing and pulling
away from the gravity of his loneliness,
headed east, calling to his Other,
in words written on air, carried by faith.
After he disappeared over the misty rooftops,
I heard the honkonk-onk-onk of a group of them,
their voices stepping onto one another
almost like shadows of sound.
They were headed due north.
What drew the first one to fly his own course,
so sure of his way he would break
from the flock? Did he know of safe landing
beyond the dawn’s horizon? Was there a special
nesting ground he hoped he’d find?
I know some of that feeling now,
about breaking from old ways
and trying new ones,
faithful to my feelings,
hopeful in my path.
I think we both know
where we’re going.
Home…


Joe Hesch

Posted over on his site A Thing for Words
Listed as #1 over at dVerse Poets-OLN34