Homecoming

If home is where your books are, I either have two (half-full glass approach) or none (half-empty), since my books are divided between the temporary home in Budapest and my childhood home (permanent, but not really mine anymore) in Lazarevac. But the best thing about this is that when I go to Serbia I have a great library--mostly from my university days--at my disposal.

This time I rediscovered an interesting collection called "A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation," which I must have acquired for one of my English major courses. It contains mostly poems and an occasional short story. Three of the women on the list of featured writers have Kerouac as their family name--Jack must have been quite a catch.

But back to the topic of home, inside the collection I found a poem that I liked; it's called "Homecoming," written by someone called Fran Landesman.

Homecoming

Somehow
The birds sound the same
When waking from a dream
In London or in San Francisco

Surely
The cats on the street
Are just as mean or sweet
In London or in San Francisco

So is the smell
Of morning coffee
But the color
Is different

The grass is the same
It gets you just as high
So is the gossip and the blues
And the boys taste the same
They get you just as high
The only special thing
Is the color of the sky

I'm not even sure about that color of the sky but I know that, when I decided to move skies, I took "that little sun"* that my friends and I gave to one another and it still gives me warmth on cold, overcast days.

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*Mihailo Lalic, "Lelejska Gora"