"Home Fire"

Home is where the heart ... . Well, surely we all know that old saying. But it's the particulars of a home that make it ours. Here the poet Linda Parsons Marion, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., celebrates familiarity, in its detail and its richness.

TED KOOSER, U.S. Poet Laureate

Whether on the boulevard or gravel backroad,

I do not easily raise my hand to those who toss

up theirs in anonymous hello, merely to say

"I'm passing this way." Once out of shyness, now

reluctance to tip my hand, I admire the shrubbery

instead. I've learned where the lines are drawn

and keep the privet well trimmed. I left one house

with toys on the floor for another with quiet rugs

and a bed where the moon comes in. I've thrown

myself at men in black turtlenecks only to find

that home is best after all. Home where I sit

in the glider, knowing it needs oil, like my own

rusty joints. Where I coax blackberry to dogwood

and winter to harvest, where my table is clothed

in light. Home where I walk out on the thin page

of night, without waving or giving myself away,

and return with my words burning like fire in the grate.

Linda Parsons Marion

Reprinted from "Home Fires: Poems," Sow's Ear Press, 1997, by permission of the author. Copyright 1997 by Linda Parsons. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry. "American Life in Poetry" appears Fridays in Northwest Life.