NAPO 27

Today's prompt was to write about the journey home. Of course, I think of The Odyssey as a lens to think about my own less epic commute. But like Odysseus, I have love waiting for me at the end of a long day. How miraculous is that?

Finding Ithaca in Beaumont

My commute takes ten minutes,

Not ten years.

Odysseus would be jealous.

No ogres block the highway.

The only sirens singing

Are the police cars filling the evening

With flashing blue and red.

No sea monsters guard my driveway.

Like him, I keep my mind on home,

Not what’s around me:

The Exxon refinery browning the azure

Of the almost endless Texas sky,

Washed-up mobile homes

From the last hurricane,

Remnants of pine forests,

Magnolia groves, who never forget

The season, spring, and bloom

And green accordingly.

Beauty salons, because we try to, too.

The scents of fresh donuts

Intermix with the chemical stench

Of the brown smoke. Gas stations

Pop up like dandelions along the highway.

A train announces its arrival,

An endless procession of boxcars

Chug along. This is progress,

The sound of the bells,

The red flashing north,

Leaving Beaumont

As the engineer begins

His own Odessey

As mine ends.

I pull into my driveway,

Open the garage,

And imagine myself

In a kind of Ithaca,

Filled with cats, fresh coffee,

And always love.

I have to confess, I'm getting a little fatigued writing a poem a day. Which makes sense. I'm almost there :)