There are many Homecomings

Written when I was far away from anywhere called home.

Some are small, some are bigger,

Sometimes it is a moment, or the journey of a thousand miles.

Some are to a different kind of home.

Every day we are coming home.

A child clinging to her father at the school gate.

Getting a cab back to a hostel in a distant, neon city

To drop, dry-mouth and drunk, in a moaning bunk.

Stepping into a church full of song, the worship heady like incense.

Every day we are coming home.

After the winter semester, the longest or train rides

As I am swept back to a tinsel-laced and cinnamon-scented house.

Arriving back in Beijing, an alien cityscape strafed by winter

And for a moment feeling the warmth of familiarity.

Sitting on a place to England, after a year away

With a feeling like falling: inevitable.

And the pop in my ears which says

You are landing, and coming home.

Some are small, some are bigger.

Eventually to that home of homes

To which the soul leans,

Which calls to everyone

Even though we don't know it as home

And don't realise that we ever left.

There are many homecomings.

Every day we are coming home.