On the New Land, I Wonder
If earth’s the only substance, molecules
of dust that hold a million other places,
composed of fragments without memory
themselves, but bound to everything that’s been —
If land is patient, waiting like a mother
for her lost, angry child, her arms spread wide
only at that last moment, because she knew
before she saw you there that you would come —
If land turns into home when built upon —
If I will ever build here. If I do,
who else will build here, what will happen here —
so far from borders, once so far from time.
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