I left beside the river
an afternoon of things unsaid.
The water wrote down nothing,
yet the waves retained a sign.
A boat waits at the distant landing,
the day’s tiredness caught in its rope.
When a bird rises from the bank,
the sky seems to stir a little.
Home is more than walls.
Sometimes it is a familiar call.
The name that asks you to return
can hold a doorway of its own.
I count the city lights
and remember the village dark.
Even there, a path was waiting,
because someone waited at its end.
The river offers no answer,
only the sound of going on.
I do not know if I will return;
the water still remembers the landing.
