Poems about Coming Home
By Faris Anderson
I don’t live in Cornwall, but visiting Cornwall feels like coming home. This is a selection of my poems inspired by Cornwall, and coming home.
Empire Light
The country fell apart
My father said
In the year of the three-day week;
Freed from blacked-out nights
We played on the foundations
For new houses
In the yawn of summer evenings.
The roads were given poet’s names,
The terraced houses
Baked from yellow brick,
Pale and adolescent,
With narrow yards
Shallow roofs
And wider windows
Than once was customary;
In the smallest bedroom,
Lying in the unrestricted sun
The light came in from India, Burma,
Kenya, all the countries of the Empire
They gave away
My father said,
And the shapes my body made
The hidden folds, peninsulas
Were countries too
Waiting to be claimed.
My hands, my feet, my eyes
The contours of my skin I’d never claimed
The rebellious colonies
Waiting for empire light.
St Mawes Castle
When we were still a family
We crossed the harbour
Past damaged ships
With enough time on the other side
To stroll along the quayside
And walk up to the castle
Before the final crossing of the day
And now we’re not a family anymore
And now I am alone
And waiting on the far side
The ferry long since gone
I wait at the castle
And look across the harbour
Towards the damaged ships
And wait till night has fallen
And walk alone
To the place where I will stay.
The Dangerous Junction
We had to cross a junction
From the south coast to the north
And my father drove the car
With all of us on board
My mother, brother, sister
When we were children
And the old white signposts
With the black spear on top
Still showed the way.
We had to cross the busy road
It was dangerous, even then
My father used to say
And only now
Is the junction safe
By a new road
My father, brother
All passed away
And only now
Is the junction safe
Which always safely crossed
Always led safely on.
