Mark Kaplon

Born Far From Home

How could my heart be touched by lovesickness or desire now? For I have been broken, have lost my wholeness, my very world itself has been cast into floating disarray. Homelessness: the greatest despair, for they who are homeless have as ghosts become.

bare bones on bare stone
being blown with abandon –
windswept black

Tonight, my seventh night on the island, I meet a Ukranian couple in the upcountry to eat with. They tell me about their time on the island, the hidden caves and waterfalls, the coasts, about their minutes and hours working on this farm. After jasmine tea I walk out from our meal and the lights of the barn, and look up to find the stars overhead shining few and large in the warm summer air. Stirred within by a quiet exultance – my head in the sky, my feet on the earth – I slowly settle off to bed.

strange dawn light
I wake to strange eaves –
now whose life is this?