Homesick

*One line taken from an old newspaper article: “lichened, castle-like crags?” This was written by Harry M. Caudill about Wendell Berry and Red River Gorge. I felt that my own description of a place dear to me was missing a couple words, and was glad to find Caudill’s to add to it. Photo of newspaper article to the side.

Will the electric modern muddle with my sacred ordinary mundane? 
A palace built extravagant by the Moors: I climb up their steps, 
thinking I’d rather they were yours, framed by green oaks and cicadas  
You’re there to greet me, to see me at the door
To think! 
The place that greeted me most warm 
Was the place most like you: old forest, trees with outstretched arms, but it lacked the Kentucky dew 
Where are your sandstone copper-coated arches? Your moss-laden mountain-laureled edges, your lichened castle-like crags? *
I am ordering a sourdough loaf, freshly made by an Alfama bakery, voted one of Lisbon’s best 
As I bite into the tangy-soft bread, I am wishing it were yours – have I chosen strangers hands over a sister’s? 
In my stupor, I am weaving down cobblestone streets and through the mazes of my mind, longing to see the same faces, to return to the same cafe daily: As if 10 years of patient-constructed community could be rebuilt in 10 days 
As if! 
I can travel far-off to carry a passport of memories: it would still be closer than these old lamenting dreams 
To hold your fingers fast in mine 
How I long to hear your footsteps putter on my floor! To bust into my room, to interrupt blissful sleep, to scream in my ear! 
The Portuguese wailing mist is tempting – how I wish it was your wails instead 
I am in bed, I hear a baby through the 5th hostel floor 
There is a mother calming, hushing-shushing 
Then she is on the plane while her child cries and she is pleading for understanding, 
begging for forgiveness with her eyes 
She does not have to ask, I wish to beg of her instead: 
How do I trade my noise-cancelling headphones, my vintage pants and two hundred dollar shoes with my four hours of free time to leisurely watch airplane shows, 
In all sincerity! 
How do I trade you, ma’am? 
If I offered her all the riches, and blissful sleep in king-sized beds, and wistful freedoms of the world, 
The independence to go where she wanted to, I’m afraid her answer would still be a resounding no

I have been home for some time now. 
The leaves are almost bare. The grey Kentucky cold starts to ache and it settles in my bones. 
I am no longer four thousand miles away, I could be there, in ten minutes, or less. But it’s as if 
an avoidant abrupt rushness replaced the soft intimate delicacy in our ordinary mundane moments, and as if you thought those Portuguese whispers were tempting.