I was born on this rock-strewn
lonesome spit of sand in the east, but
this is not my home.

I go home every April:
April, when lace-white dogwood and
blushing redbud feed their blooms from the fertile earth
of Indiana

My father’s family is steady,
as rooted to the farm as the old oil lines,
and rows and rows and rows of corn.

My heart is three thousand acres,
knotted with forest, sliced by streams
and hiding old horse-jumps from my father’s youth
in its earthy folds.

Every April, every April,
I come home.