Landmark

There is that tree I ate from as a child But cannot recognize again Who planted it? What season will the leaves, Foolish like a cotton candy clown, Seduce my tongue to chase Deprived succulence of fruit or flower? I could wither things in a foreign place But this home, Why am I sensed as such an alien here? The tree and I Have a common bond, An aniquity of inadequacy; a man's native home Should be as simple as his native land - O that I could be born again there, The first place of my ancestors' first tear! We do not cry Until we lose ourselves in the emptinesss of our being, I know, I know, I know! That pain has an echo, A ghost that haunts the tree with fictive green: See, only superficially we can belong. ii A landmark is not For things we lost, but the self That we cannot find Those things that we mark Are always there, but we stray In new memory The ones they create For people displaced like sand dunes In the void of faith.