Where can I find people like me?
Do they actually exist somewhere
out there int the vast expanse of the world?

Or do I sit here bemoaning my self made exile
in the same vein that a child does when placed
in the corner as punishment for some transgression?

Even if there were some community I might
feel welcome in hiding with at some far
flung place pledging true freedom, still I would
suffer the pains of having a broken soul.

It's been a long time since I opened up
my shoebox full of pictures and saw myself
five years old and wading barefoot through
a cold creek....loving every second of it.

There's another polaroid of me feeding a mint
to that angry old donkey, dead years now,
but that ornery ol ******* and I had some
sort've understanding, him knowing his place
and me trying to discover mine.

Most of my life has been spent clawing my
way toward some ill defined future I thought
I had to travel toward in order to live well,
and now I find myself willingly going backward.

My Dad achieved his dream of having land when
I was fifteen, and when I came back to live with him
again, his land became my own, his cares for our place,
became my own, hauling rocks and worrying after fences,
being a part of something that we built from our hands.

The world changed quickly though,
and if I had been older and wiser I
would have expected that the eventual
break would appear when most we all
needed something of peace.

But those minutes in the clear creek,
and that grudging comraderie with a donkey,
getting off the bus when seventeen and having
horses recognize me as I walk down the dirt road,
hoofed friends meeting me at a gate every day;
that is the home I need...and one day will return to.