Poem: "Coming Home" by J.C. Sturm

The bones of my tupuna*

Safe in secret places up north

Must wait a little longer

Before they claim me for good. 

                            The love of my second parents

                            Unconditional from the beginning

                            Unrelenting to the end

                            Never quite made me theirs. 

That tormented paradoxical man

Father of my children

Convinced me we belonged together

But then moved on. 

                            The young ones (our young) he left behind

                            Claimed my castle as their own

                            Being themselves a part of me

                            Always, bone of my bone. 

Years earlier, a much younger self

Lay face down in hot dry sand --

                            Salt on her skin, the smell

                            Of green flax pungent in the heat, 

                            Summer a korowai

                            Around bare shoulders --

And felt in her bones

Without knowing why

She belonged to that place. 

Nearly a life-time later

On another beach --

                                                                 the sea

                            A blinking shield at our feet,

                            Behind us a dark hill fortress

                            With sentinel sea birds

                            Circling and calling --

I lay down beside you in tussock

And felt without warning

I had come home. 

     -- J. C. Sturm

*tupuna - Maori for ancestor or ancestors

About the poet:

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/sturmjc.html