A Welcoming Home

From the belly of the crowded airport

A mom’s cheer rose.

It was the sound of someone with heavy attachments.*

(*A nod to the only poem  I’ve

ever memorized—Robert

Bly’s The Loon’s Cry

featured in Bly’s Selected Poems,

Bly’s poetry completely changed

how I viewed my life . . . perhaps

even, how I lived my life—

back when I was an undergraduate English
major at the University of North Dakota—

Oh blessed land of harsh weather

and sturdy peoples.

I could finally see the beauty in

a simple walk by the Red River of
the North or in the grain elevators

erupting quietly near the town center

of each drive-thru small town

in eastern Montana where you only

linger long enough to find your way

to some other place).

And so we walk through the terminal

and back to the car, hand in hand.

She tells me that it is so strange
to see the small white face of her

nine-month old brother.

The leaves have left and returned

in new clothing since she was last

with us. Opening the car door,

I catch my breath when I realize that

my heart has spent the last ten months

inside an antique china tea cup;

the kind that can chip too easily;

the kind put up behind glass.