Rome is Where the Heart Is

I love Texas. It’s quickly becoming my new home, but every time I retrace my steps to Kansas? I’m reminded, in so many beautiful ways, that the stronger one’s roots are? The higher one is free to fly.

Rome is Where the Heart Is

One road it is that leads me home
Beneath this stratospheric dome
Abandon highway finds me Rome
It calls my name.

Mine sits adjacent to a road
Its ribbon long in graveled mode.
A quiet, countrified abode.
It calls my name.

Fast tucked away among the plains
In bordered fields of rising grains
A land that celebrates its rains.
It calls my name.

Where fireflies upstage the dark
Where June bugs snap and crunch and spark
Where robins plump and meadows lark
it calls my name

The daybreak squints in dawning’s light
.All tranquil, pure and warm and right
My father’s chickens peck a fight.
It calls my name.

Old Dog stands barking up a tree
This mongrel etched in ebony
His gait runs friendly, fast and free
It calls my name.

My mom sits stitching by the mile.
My dad pens wisdom with a smile.
Their treasures vast, eternal pile.
It calls my name.

When glows the setting of the sun.
Descends its stair steps, one by one
And tucks earth in, akin to none.
It calls my name.

Its signature scrawls blazing fire.
Rich pens a lullaby in lyre
For night sky’s scintillating choir.
It calls my name.

This windswept plot of prairie land
Has shaped my heart to grow, expand
And holds me ever in its hand.
It calls my name.

Home, then, is where your heart resides
Life drives you there from endless sides
And harbors you within its tides
It calls my name.

For when you’re grounded, then you’re free
To make your home both far and wee
And spread your roots and branch and tree.
It calls my name.

Here a shout.
There a whisper
Now it commands.
I answer.
It echoes my name.
And I’m home.

Soli Deo Gloria.