by Christopher Luke

Created on: November 24, 2011

Where am I from?
Somewhere other than here,
I look in vain for persons or things familiar
Before they too disappear,
If they were there to begin with at all.

You see, today, I live in a studio flat
In the centre of town,
Far from the open fields and rolling hills
If not Hardy's maddening crowd;
And as detached from my rural roots
As the detached farmhouse in the country where I was born.

If, as is said, “an Englishman’s home is his castle”,
Then my little flat today resembles
Something not dissimilar to the servant’s quarters on the edge of the estate
To the somewhat larger and older house where I was born,
And spent the first few years of my life growing-up
In the heart of the English countryside.

Leaving aside material things such as bricks and mortar
Increasingly too I feel, as I grow old,
Not unlike a stranger not so much in my own life but in many ways in my own country
As once familiar landmarks are demolished, old customs are swept away,
And older friends and family too die and, in turn, become replaced
With a new generation which shows little, if no, appreciation for the past.

Today I increasingly find myself searching unsuccessfully
For once familiar things I once held
But have since lost or given away,
And others too which have either become obsolete or redundant
On one’s pilgrimage through life
To hopefully something better than this.

At other times I find myself questioning
Whether it is me who does not belong
Or is it other persons or things who do not belong to me,
As in the absence of a sense of ownership and control
There seems precious little bond to bind me
As the leaseholder of, and to, my life for how many years lease I have been afforded under my tenancy
To Almighty God who is the creator and freeholder of all life, including my own.

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