HIRAETH*
All my life searching for that summer
bungalow on Great River Drive, at the top
of Saltaire Road. High up, my mother said,
no danger of flood. We walked downhill
to the beach at the end of Woodhull
Landing Road, down the graying, salty,
wooden steps to the rocky shore,
with its scent of wet sand and horseshoe crabs
stranded on their backs. The scents of wood rot
and squirrel urine take me back there—
a leaky bungalow torn down, near woods
replaced by two-storey houses, lawns,
landscaped lots without picket fences.
The road names and hilly terrain remain.
In my mind, I’m barefoot, a new swimmer.
I hunt for conch my mother cooks for dinner.
In Virginia, the hills and moss again,
I love books like that summer I was ten.
*Hiraeth is a Welsh concept of longing for home. Many Welsh people claim it is a word which cannot be translated, meaning more than solely "missing something" or "missing home." To some, it implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person. It is associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone, while being grateful of that/ their existence. It can also be used to describe a longing for a homeland, potentially of your ancestors, where you may have never been.
