Be home

2024

Be home
s hidden in the pursuit of building,
like primitive cultivation.
Toil upon soil.
It begins underground,
And rises vertically—
Beneath the earth: the work,
Above the earth: the fruit.
Digging, ramming, raising, filling.
Trenching, covering, watering, feeding.
I want to tear down the eastern wall
To build up the western one,
To fold parts of the old house
Into the body of the new.
Like a seed—
So that what once was
And what has yet to come
Intersect in the echo of now.
They are silent narrators,
Watching, recording all that occurs
In the spaces they inhabit.
Condensing yesterday’s stories into crystal,
Setting them upright in tomorrow’s framework.
Like when I heard M say—
Back in the village,
Every family building a house
Must send a son from their own bloodline.
Because they believe in planting by hand:
Sow melon, reap melon.
Sow bean, reap bean.
And in time, their house
Will grow from the soil itself.
And they,
Will be born again with it,
Here—
Rooted where they built.