Inspired by "Homeward Bound" by Paul Simon (1966)

Nostalgia

Alone on a stone street
shouldering clouds
I walk where I walked many times before,
like an afterthought wandering
and squandering itself.

A long-standing regret
fosters an untidy wish
repeating over and over
in my mind: home.

Home; the word skitters
off my tongue, the notion
of a single building
overpowering everything
in timeless snapshots,
an occasion for surprise
that a thought survives.

Yet, no one waits for me,
and nothing is
                    as it once was.

The music’s changed;
everything’s rearranged;
and I cannot be homeward bound,
for home is where
the walls are ripped apart
and all the clapboards have fallen away.