one evening
in Australia
I felt so homesick
that I unrolled the giant US map

that my aunt Nancy
had given to Peter for his classroom
its shiny plastic laminate
covered one third of the floor in our office

I sat down on it
and reached for a book of
Billy Collin’s poetry
from the rainbow of book spines nearby

laying stretched out
across the Dakotas and Illinois
I let the stanzas
rock me back to a place

of familiar wonder
of shared pain and joy
where the words of another
connect and bind

so that a part of you
becomes whole again
simply knowing
that you are not alone

an hour later my husband came home
to find Billy and I somewhere in America
and he sat down shyly on the Hawaiian Islands
and reached for my hand

today i drove down Guerrero Avenue
in San Francisco
and Jack Kornfield
read me Billy Collins over the stereo

and I thought to myself
how fluid time is
how an evening spent laying on a map
can lead to a chapter in a whole other land

copyright – Christina Adler – 22 September 2009 – Hillsborough, California USA