Coming Home ~

It was my seventeenth summer 
for the first time I had been away 
and now I was coming home -
My father met me at the station 
and as I walked beside him 
his eyes, usually so reticent 
were bright and sparkling -
Emotion rose in me, swelling until 
I could scarcely contain it -
The very houses we were passing 
houses I had known since childhood 
seemed to be brushed with magic -
It was as though I had never seen this street before -

In later years I would walk this street again 
on occasions sometimes joyful 
sometimes shrouded with grief -
but this was a shining thing apart 
a moment I would keep for all time - 
I had been away and was learning 
what it was like to come home.