Coming Home

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Ten years are a long time for a cottage to be empty
once we’re a family of eight
living here,
then it was a cramped place,
now that I was the only one left
it is roomy enough for me.
The grime of time
had blinded the cottage
it could see out and catch the day,
the door was blocked by a huge spiders web
and creaked when I opened it.
Mice, who for years had made a home here
panic stricken about knowing
that they soon would have to set up home somewhere else.
Yes this is my home
I feel at ease here
after years of turbulence
looking for the elusive,
for love and harmony
but it had always eluded me.
Here is the other kind of love
the one that prevails
when human voices are stilled
and the good silence speaks!
And as rain gently fell
a rainbow arched across my modest home.