Poem: "Home Is Where"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the March 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by prompts from rix_scaedu, kelkyag, and janetmiles.  It also fills the "7) Codex" slot in the Vellum list for the Rainbowfic fest.  It has been sponsored by Shirley Barrette.  This poem belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.



Home Is Where

The little shack of a temple
was unassuming but promising,
Shaeth thought.

During his tenure as God of Evil,
he had held services in temples of marble
with fixtures of gold and jewels.

As God of Drunks,
he held services in a temple of wood
whose only jewel-like content
was the window that Trobby had made
from broken bottles and bricking-mud
because the pane was empty.

The place wasn't much to look at,
but as Trobby said,
"It's a step up in the world
from a hole in the ground."
Since Shaeth had, in fact,
found Trobby sleeping in a muddy hollow
beside a fallen log, this was an accomplishment.

"It will do," Shaeth said.
It provided a place to hold services by day
and to let drunks sleep by night.

"It has kind of homey feeling to it,"
Trobby said.  "I think.
I never actually had much of a home."

Shaeth was discovering
that this was true of a great many drunks.
"They say that home is where,
when you have to go there,
they have to take you in," he said.

Certainly the warm dry space
did a good job of attracting followers
who needed what simple things
Shaeth could provide these days.

A place to sleep.
A remedy for hangovers.
These were things
that Shaeth had promised
to his new followers.

Trobby straightened the rag rug
that covered part of the floor.
He said, "It's like coming home
to somewhere you've never been before."

Shaeth looked at the tumble of unwashed bodies
sleeping along one wall of the temple,
and wondered if he could rig a gutter and rain barrel
to collect some water for bathing.
At least they slept safer here than in the street:
no one wanted to tangle with Shaeth.

"Home is where," said Glenta,
"when you want to go there,
they want to take you in."

"Put that version in the codex,"
Shaeth instructed.

Glenta took out the pages
in which she inscribed the liturgy
of Shaeth, God of Drunks,
and added it to the list of homilies.

* * *

Notes:

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
-- Robert Frost