Compass, Take Me Home

Have you ever wandered north? Felt the air grow anciently crisp and chilled as an ice cube, crystalline? Watched the nights grow shorter or longer depending? Have you been wrapped in fur and fiery dispensation? nostalgic and comfortable are these summer retreats.

Have you ever travelled east? to the big exotic cities and breathed the polluted beauty of red-lit air? Watched their confident well-dressed women stride along to urgent appointments? Sat in bars that locals call a hole in the wall, but which your hometown would proudly claim as its great saloon, waiting for a friend to walk in the door and remark on the probabilities in such chaos? Exuberant and overly-sophisticated are these towering rooms.

Have you ever taken a greyhound bus south? And reveled in the sweet citrus fields of a wealthy relative? Watched the populations dwindle while growing close to care for the strangers that might arrive, good hearted in the humid night. Heard hushed folks reconcile past and present in their back-room conversations? Lurid but gentle are these chivalrous hollows.

Have you ever gone west? Smelt the breeze of an ocean who’s current never sped your trip, but whose foamy waves you love just the same. Been in search of something, and found it playing cards with its questionable friends? Learned the pervasiveness of the immigrant, and seen care-free lovers lose more than they thought they had to begin with? Here, you can still catch the sunset before anyone finds out that it rose. Styled and cheap are these cavalier mansions.

Tell me, oh! From whence did I come?