Homeland

.
.

Something Unseen

Something unseen

is calling,

softer than breath,

more faint than touch;

it’s always there pulsing

through veins - the

elusive smell

(and unique to you)

of homeland.

Maybe: it’s the smell of

the first day of Spring.

One morning it’s

suddenly here: with 

a perfume pure and cool

full of dew on farmland,

the pale scent of the sun

and a light taste of salt

added from the nearby sea.

Maybe: it’s the smell of

a mid-summer day

when stones and yellow clay

add their flinty char

into the hard burnt air

and the oil of Eucalypts

and the sweet sweat

of a horse compete.

Maybe: the smell

has been obscured

by all the years, new faces,

new places and your

self-made role in the world:

yet the blood knows - it pulls

you toward home just as strongly

as the new-born baby is drawn

toward the breast by the smell

of its own mother’s milk.