There might be places I’d prefer to be anchored,
But I find myself here,
As if I had no other place to call home
Among the many places I’ve seen.

I’m planted here
Not fully by my own choice.
My parents, both from other places,
Met and settled here,
And I didn’t move far.
In spite of my occasional intentions,
And visits to other places
I may have preferred more,
I couldn’t plant roots that would sustain me.
And I find myself, like a reluctant family member
A part, yet apart,
From this home I resist
Almost as powerfully
As I embrace.

I’ve never known,
Or been known,
By a place so fully.
At some point, noticed by none of us,
There’s no leaving
And no turning back.

It’s a strange inertia,
This strong and invisible strand by strand binding
That holds me, by not holding me;
But they hold me more firmly
Than any made by the harshest human hand.

For better or worse
We are together,
Bound by some vow never taken
And I feel my roots, each day, each season,
Becoming deeper
Yet somehow weaker.
Unshakeable, yet never permanent,
Like life itself,
Today seems solid,
But my beginning and ending here
Is like a distant unimaginable mist…