Home Sick

The soles of my soul are calloused and blistered, 

This pilgrimage is rougher and longer than pictured. 

One stride feels like three, three years pass like one, 

My golden homestead calls beyond the burning sun. 

I march on despondent, crushed flowers in my wake.

Let the thorns have their fill, it’s only flesh they take. 

Tunnel-vision obscures the grey grown in strife, 

O my home, my home… When will you arrive? 

_{Ode to New Jerusalem}

~Poet of Ephraim

See response from another poet in Ephraim: When It Comes