Welcome Home
/I opened the door
to your frightened eyes,
your wild hair,
and your unkempt body.
You carried the earthy smell of soil,
the gritty feel from the salt of the sea,
and the damp decay of the dark forest.
I invited you back
into this temple
of forgotten dreams,
into the holy chamber
of unrequited love
as the beggar
whose feet I now anoint,
whose hair I now wash,
whose clothes I now mend,
whose wounds I now tend.
I give you these hands
that you may do Gods work.
I give you these feet
that you may hallow
the grounds of this life
and walk in grace
before all creatures.
© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved
We often lose ourselves in order to live in the world, shooing away the wild and unacceptable in us and leaving it to fend for itself in a psychic terra-ephemera. But that which we turn away often returns. Our response determines whether it will come as friend or foe, whether it will be our curse or our blessing. How will you answer when the feral child, now fully grown, comes knocking?
This poem appears in my latest book:
The Work Of Being Yourself
