Home
Such a deceptively simple concept
When you have it
           you can’t describe it
           and take it for granted
When you don’t
           you are forever searching
           aware of the hole in your heart
           but not knowing
           how to fill it

Some say home is where the heart is
Where your people are
Wherever you lay your head at night

Comforting thought

But what if home is also a place?
On this earth
Tangible and corporeal
Rooted in the land or water
That each of us must seek
And may never find

It could be where we were born
Where we end up
Or someplace we have never been

What happens if you never find that home?
What happens if you did
And then you leave

Alaska is that home for me
Not a specific place or town
But the combination of
        mountains,
        braided rivers,
        wildlife that requires respectful distance,
        weather that demands preparation,
        tundra, bogs, and spruce

I doubt I will ever live there again
But it will always live in me