Chapter 1
My Homeward Wind
My restless soul gives in to the call of the Homeward Wind. Thoughts of my youth and green acres flow from within.
The countryside where I was born, and my next of kin. My first kiss, my first love—my tempted first sin.
Take me back. Take me back, My Homeward Wind.
The distant apple tree bears new fruit and still stands alone. The hidden robin’s nest filled with young, that have not yet flown.
The green grass of the meadows, now home to nature’s deer. A doe in the midday sun nursing her twins, without man’s fear.
A garter snake slithers on its way along last winter’s dried leaves. The new clover blossoms give call, to the hum of the feeding bees. The whisper of a whippoorwill as it sings in the distance from the forest of pine trees.
The rusted plow stuck in its last furrow— frozen in time. The old treehouse in the great oak that withstood nature’s time, and the boyhood memories, I claim as mine.
The heart I carved with my jack-knife into a cottonwood tree, I must find. Your initials and mine are forever locked in love, like time. And the sounds of a rippling brook that continually flows in my mind, like a rhyme.
Sealed in my heart, and never to be set free. Oh, the first kiss you gave me under the cottonwood tree.
Take me back. Take me back, My Homeward Wind.
The tattered old farmhouse stands without loss of its enduring will. The Great Northern wind has taken its toll as the old house weakens, yet stands still.
The blistering white paint and the broken glass that rests on the windowsill. The picket fence around the garden where my bike once leaned, has fallen at will.
Subtle sounds of a loose shingle unbuckle my spine, feeling a chill. A look back to see a reflection from a broken mirror in the bedroom where my mother lay— and first took ill.
The old house on the hill where I was born, begins to lose its will. And the Homeward Wind is silenced and now lies still.
The green grass of home has been calling me. As does the first kiss I gave you under the cottonwood tree. Entrenched, deep in my heart, only you hold the key.
And carved in granite on my stone, a memory. My ashes carried by the Homeward Wind, always to be free.
Take me back. Take me back, My Homeward Wind.
