Dreaming of Home

A free verse or prose on my thoughts, woven together from my journal. – jjf

/1

I stand atop this frozen hill, where I’ve learned to bury my ache,

I’ve dropped each pang, a heavy stone into the well of my silence.

I wait, shivering, for a flicker of hope to pull them free.

But no sweet mangoes bloom here to kiss my lips with their sweet nectar;

Only the ghostly taste lingers, a cruel echo in my dreams.

Gone are the coconut palms, their fronds once a cradle for my restless mind,

Their absence is a hollow I carry through this endless frost.

Beneath strange, brittle trees, I sit on roots that pierce the snow,

Overhearing the diaspora’s weary chant: “One more year, then I’m gone.”

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/2

O Air Canada, ready your wings for I ache to fall into your embrace,

To flee this barren cold where no palms sway to shield my despair.

The planes drift overhead, silent phantoms carving the sky,

Their contrails thread dreams I cannot touch.

My heart twists, wild with longing to join their flight,

To stitch my story into their fleeting grace,

Bound for a horizon that haunts my every breath,

A soul adrift, mourning what it’s lost.

Now, how do I clutch the diamonds glinting cruelly in the snow?

How do I peer past the tire-tracked slush to a world I’ve forsaken?

---

/3

My dreams unravel like whispers of a devotion I barely recall,

A promise of peace gleaming faintly in the distance:

A life of calm, warmth, and waves lapping at my feet.

But here, through squalls that howl and blind,

Through the endless white that buries my bones,

I chase visions fierce and vivid:

The island’s heartbeat is calling me home.

Beyond this inner city’s grey cage,

Beyond the ice that claws at my spirit,

A world of wonder waits—

A tropical dawn breaks through my winter night.

–jjf’25

Thanks for reading my journal entries. Could you let me know what country you are reading from? Much love, 😊 jjf