I Miss My Home

She is there waiting patiently;
I close my eyes and see her
Visions of vibrant green and crumbling stone.

There is an unshakable comfortable solitude within her arms.
The arms of a mother who has watched tragedy upon tragedy;
She has watched her children leave her for myths and tall tales.
Have you seen the streets paved of gold?

But she is patient as all mothers are with their children,
She knows they will return to her one day.
I made the trek once and found solace,
For a foreign place it felt unbelievably familiar.

I walked through the Burren that was so out of place;
It felt alien, unsettling, and fascinating.
"Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back!"
A childhood rhyme brought to life at least somewhat.
"Watch your step on the cracks, you may fall through!"
We were cautioned as we wandered amongst the Giant's bed.

I walked the footsteps of my ancestors wondering about them.
Were they warriors or scholars?
Please tell me they were not cowards!
Were the men noble, but more importantly were the women defiant?
Fiery redheads determined to live their own lives regardless of rules.
Are they proud to count me as a kinswoman?

I walked among the stones, the remains of strongholds of old.
Within those ruins I could have spent a lifetime dreaming,
What stories do those stones hold?
I'm sure they are tales that would excite and terrify.
Tales of magic, greed, bloodlust, love.
Where did the little people go? Perhaps they are just laying in wait.
Yes, they are waiting for the right moment to appear again.

I walked through the Highlands and closed my eyes.
They are there, the ghosts of my clan.
Looking at the Crying Hills did they feel the same as I?
The tenseness of betrayal still echoes there.
It is a betrayal of clan custom just as dangerous to history
As Judas and Brutus were.

They are sisters really, the thistle and the shamrock.
Two Celtic women with histories so intertwined.
The Scots and the Irish have spent centuries fighting.
Yet I am equal parts a Scotswoman and an Irishwoman.
My loyalty is to both fair countries: I am of their soils.
I march to the beat of my own drum, a Bodhran: a Celtic heartbeat.

I belong with them, my two mothers.
I felt far more at home, at rest, there than I have here.
Does that make me less of an American?
No, for my bloodlines are older and deeper than America.
They are calling me, beckoning for my return.

I miss my home.
Yet I will return, of that I am sure.
And they will welcome me, a wayward daughter
Who has found her way back to her stoop
Yearning for the comforting blaze of the fire inside.
There I will finally be at peace.

~written in 2007