Home was Lubbock when I moved to Quanah,
Quanah when I went to college, and then
so many years until I’d not lived there
some forty years. I sit in the house
I’ve owned these sixteen years. Home?
Sure. But I sit in group, hear and say,
“Welcome home!” and know how much more true
that feels than such a tag to this address.

Home is not family of origin, or of choice,
or that I birthed, but home is where I’m loved,
where I sink into a warm bath of caring,
where my actions, my failures, my slips
can’t stain or strain the bond.

Home is growing comfortable in me,
is realizing the guiding, loving presence
that hugs me home.