I Feel Like Going Home......

Etheridge Knight is one of my favorite poets. I am not a substance abuser, drunk, nor am I chemically dependent. While I have visited numerous jails and prisons I have not spent one night confined in an cell, out side of the ones I've created self imposed solitude within my mind, soul and heart.
The first time I heard:
This year there is a grave stone wall damming my stream, and when
the falling leaves stir my genes, I pace my cell or flop on my bunk
and stare at 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them,
they are all of me, I am me, they are thee, and I have no sons
to float in the space between.
The Idea of Ancestry, Etheridge Knight....
The words hit me like hip hop hit most, or as a poet friend says the first time he and a bunch of friends saw Breakin' or Beat Street. I knew there was a connection, and this man's words, powerful, and live at the very core of my being....
I have to go home. I awoke this morning with a sense of loss. I love driving, yet I loathe that drive... With each turn of the wheel, with each heart beat, I feel longing, a sense of loss, the need to escape, totally disconnected. I have no sons to float in the space between...
"I feel like going home......" But where do you go, when nothing is waiting for you at the end of the road, but memory laced nightmares, broken dreams, and an empty glass over flowing with blackened tears. I say empty, 'cuz, I lie, nothing ever quite captures my pain and sense of loss. I say black because it absords everything. It is not the absence of light, as most would want you to believe. And I am not absent of light. Neither are my tears. But they are empty. Shallow. Again, because I lie. Most things are superficial, seldom a connection. I feel like going home, but I have no sons to float in the space between. I have secrets, that eat away. There was something to float but it would overwhelm that space between, I was selfish. I carried hope for a few days, became overwhelmed in despair, and remained empty. I have no sons to float in the space between. I feel like going home. But there's nothing there.
Falling leaves stir my genes... they are waiting at the end of the road. But to face them means to face a past I want to forget. I feel like going home. I am all of them and they are all of me. Great-grand says she's all I have. She has two that she teaches the same. "You are all you have", she tells them, "take care of each other, don't let anyone hurt the other." Sound just like my great-grand. I am reminded. I have no sons to float in the space between. Will the simple laugh that greets our souls, between the secrets that leak between bleeding heart beats, be enough to sustain, to forget for a moment. Or will I simply be reminded that she is all I have. And that revelation within itself pains.
I have removed enough stones, and while my pockets are heavy, I am willing to make to climb, I feel like going home.