Up/Old

We built a home of compliments,
but I am my mother's child.
Guilty of growing restless
and incapable of rooting long enough
to watch neighbours burst through
concrete and build communities
from the rubble.

I fashioned my own nest
from gusts of prairie wind
and mountain air.
I let it carry me through glaciers
and drop me into icy streams.
Rapids and whitecaps raged havoc on my bones,
broken skin bled into great lakes -
I washed up on their shores,
collected wildflowers and thoughts.

Immigrant nomadic in No man's land,
I weaved a new home of birdsong and buffalo bone.
I found out where my spirit lies,
not between my head - 
between my thighs.