I wrote this poem some time ago. I’ve never really had the confidence to publish or share anything I’ve written in the past. This is my first attempt at sharing. My grandmother was an accomplished poet and was published a number of times. I hope you enjoy this simple poem below.
You’re Home Now
Sometimes a quiet melancholy comes,
not sadness—something softer, something older.
A longing, the way the body longs for a place
it has never seen but somehow remembers.
Call it homesick.
Homesick for a room that is only kind,
warm, stable, asking nothing of you—
no performance, no proving, no show.
Just a chair by the window and your own breath,
welcome exactly as it is.
For years I searched the world for that room.
I knocked on cities, on people, on achievements,
on every open door that promised shelter,
and found instead more doors.
But now I think the room was never out there.
I think the seeking itself was the long way home,
the necessary wandering
before the soul turns inward
and finds the door was always on this side.
In the middle of an ordinary day—
dishes in the sink, a phone still ringing—
it is possible to close your eyes
and knock, softly, on your own quiet centre,
and hear it answer:
You’re home now.
Not somewhere far. Not later.
Here, in this breath, in this body,
in the small warm room you carry with you
that never once stopped waiting for your return.
By Tony Stockwell
