Guests

Of the mysteries of sense and grace,

the greatest is that of home,

how place and person brush hands

and haunt each other with scent and taste,

bonding walls with blood and bone.

Some guests come and build such bonds;

they bless our things with newborn sight

and let us breathe our objects’ essence:

the spice of wood stoves, the tang of cut lawns,

the mustiness of a stuffed-away kite.

Our guests instill these with their presence

and kindle the warmth each object houses.

But some guests become our home.

When they leave, the warmth follows.

We seek them in the mirror-frames

lined with cards, in the scent of a comb,

in all our things they left half hollow.

We eventually empty out their names

with each repetition, and the words grow foreign.

So we become the ever-guests

searching for a host, for one to reconcile

our noses to the earth,

searching for scents in which to rest

after houses tinged with exile.