what is home

the place you belong

the place you return to

the place your heart lives

what is home

a land a people a place of your own

can dreams be homeless

if the dreamer must carry the dreams

from here to there belonging no where

if the dreams are stolen from the land

the people the place where the dreamer

belongs what then what is home when

one has been stolen carried like cargo

released to build a land for others with

no place for your children’s children far

from the land from which they came

after the crops are harvested the buildings built

the roads made the poles put in the ground after

building home for other people where

will the children of the builders go

they used to live on the edge of towns

red lined to the places no one wanted

but they want them now they want the

ninth ward they want west oakland they want

harlem hunters point south berkeley

they want these places so the children of

the children of builders stolen from their land

their people must find home

some other place move out to the edge of the edge

where the indigenous refused to settle go where the

land itself is unfriendly make home there until

they want that place then move again

growing hiraeth like a wild bush sprouting

with deep roots what is home if you are

removed from the place the people the land

what is home alone in a sorrowland

without land

rootless

carrying dreams in bags