These streets still feel strange, this time of year.

I now know them well. Well enough that they feel like home

Well enough for me to know where I’m going:

How to get from a to b and back.

And yet, ‘though full of people, they have a loneliness to them

A desolation I never felt among the fields.

***

I walk in my chair, as I always have

Freeing my mind to roam.

Through the cold January streets of the metropolis I head

Full, thriving, yet empty and lonely.

But one feeling is still as it was:

The feeling of the return; the open door; the ‘welcome home’

The love within.