Home again.
I am haunted.

Not by ghosts,
Not by evil,
Simply by memories
Of a place that no longer exists
But surrounds me, in the place I call my hometown.

Everywhere I look are the homes where friends
And schoolmates
And my father‘s coworkers lived.

People I knew for the entirety of my childhood
Until I left Montana
To find greener pastures.
As most adolescents are wont to do.

Along with the homes
Are all the familiar trappings of my childhood.

The house where I grew up.

My father‘s first workplace.

His later workplace.

And a strange unknown place that has long since replaced them both…
A place completely foreign to me.

I travel home to see my mother.
To keep her company,
But more to take care of her,
To watch over her,
As she once did for me.

Her physical condition,
As her body defied her.

So weakened over the years,
Now her mind quickly catches up.

My mother, the tomboy, the unstoppable,
now burdened by navigating the hallway.

Her brilliant, sharp, witty mind.
Begins to rapidly fail.

I rely on the remaining pieces of my family,
To hold each other closer.

We are the things that bind each of us to each other.

We are what remains.

I have a place I once called home.

Over time,
This place
And we
Will begin to fade into history.

Postscript: I originally composed and posted this poem on my way home from Great Falls, MT after a rapid decline in my mother’s health. I shared an absolutely wonderful day with my brother and father, on my brother’s birthday in the third week of July, and then headed back to Seattle by way of Spokane. Regrettably, my father would pass five days after I posted this poem, resulting in the poem posted on August 20, 2026, “Grief is a wild creature – A Poem“