homeward bound "home, with my thoughts escaping.... home...where my music's playing... home...where my love lies waiting silently for me..." well, my love is not waiting for me tonight, and perhaps that is what keeps me from the clutches of slumber when the sandman has scattered so much dream sleep into my eyes-- i might be snoring, but i doubt it. flying down the interstate in infinite slumber only to be awakened by a finger in the ear, collecting my-little-ponies at mcdonalds and watching the little blond child with the big eyes and the fumbling words with his doting grandfather...wow. now this is life, this is life and my boy will look like that, a little, i think, except his hair will be curlier, his face more otherworldly...and zoom zoom zoom! past the mountains and the hedgehogs and we can beat the train...almost. but slow, there's the lake, and the deer, and my grandmother gathering me home where i can eat carrots like bugs bunny and cuddle with silence for a while-- sometimes, many times, words aren't necessary. and advised by the man with the xray eyes to quit school, to come back here to this land that loves me, to this home that i need like the wind in my hair and the green in my teeth...but no, not yet, i promised. ed said "don't go, not yet." it's not time. and i know by the look of the birdcaged angel with the haunting changing eyes free me, free me...and i have the key he hasn't been looking for-- there's one way back and i have the map, he hasn't been looking, but maybe i can be some help after all. but only if i get the stars back in my eyes. and here, home, with the wooden ricochet barns and the lopsided trailors slapped side by side in a row by the church, mine hidden and ill-lit, off from the road, with my blue chariot in the back which i haven't a license to drive yet--all these the ring master's things before me, all these her, and still her presence in a protective glance--though i'm the one giving advice over midnight phone calls now and i'm the one who wants to wear an apron...how funny, how strange these pillowcase eyes flipping through magazines and watching television, the tense snap of the spine uncoiling to the hazy pud dle in the loveseat, cat-in-the-hat slippers grinning up at me while the magnificent gift that my grandfather has allows him to magically make the most perfect movies at the most perfect times appear on that little black box with the minature people in, the minature red-head girl who could make everyone smile, and i looked like that, once--i looked like that in those annie pj's with the attached footies when i was bundled up in that pink psychadelic blanket and shoved into a car at some odd hour of the morning when we went to retreve the ring master from her service to uncle sam... chalking football fields and planting flowers, of course, just because she didn't want to wear his chicken blood--this house. i've been sleeping in this house, on and off, for as long as i can remember. this house with all its apparitions, and spirits, and leprechauns. this house, with me and kim crawling around on the floor being jaguars (and i could almost sound like one too--ROAARRRR!!! but my voice was murdered for days) home with that picture of me loking like annie or shirley...no...with that picture of me looking like me with the slightest hint of tears in the red checkered dress i am sure my grandmother stitched up for me--some things never change. and i am home, with the stars back in my eyes, "the sun's in my heart, and i'm ready for love..." and maybe i don't have an angel to sleep with tonight, but i've got snuggles the seal and rainbows the unicorn to keep my company and tell me stories, and tristan, the baby dragon on the dresser beside me...so i'll be okay. they promised. "...where my love lies waiting silently for me."