I wander back to my home in quiet mystery . . .

      Hsieh Ling-Yun

After a long time away the familiar way down

Is now a leap of faith, weeks of rain shearing

Away the passage across the ridge and down

The cutbank, the roots and stones that held it

Loose now or fallen to make a makeshift dam

Where the path ended at water's edge, deeper

And higher now than it had been, and deeper

Too the smell of old decay and new growth

Held and holding on in the high water, so heavy

Now it seems nothing could move beneath it

But above it here and then there the flexion

And reflection of light-slant relaxing the surface

Tension, refraction another law of motion

Rearranging your arrival in a rippling shimmer

Across what seems more distance now than

You've ever crossed, and if you are patient,

Staying where you are but listening as far as

You can, all is gathered again into the stillness

That is like no other place you've ever been,

 How home always is, after a long time away.