nostalgia.

"zvegsdute
as nore namo"
she taught me...

our backs resting against weary rucksacks
somewhere in the middle of
poland's nowheres
of mafija crawling train stations
stars to guide us home
i was the size of a speck of light
our desires the size of galaxies
(ive always had this thing about
space
in all forms)

we slept
heads buried in our arms
so as not to be spotted by
invisible kidnappers
on the other side of that fence
my toque full of the stench of
"stinky cheese"
chanting
"ah zvegsdute...
as nore
namo"

so many years have passed
since that night

so many mornings have passed
since that sun
when laughing school children
appeared from beyond a fence
laughing
signaling
how close to home we were

so much of life in those days spent
catching one train to the next
empty
crowded
platforms...
steel girders...
i have clickity clacked across the world and back
outflown birds
and outdrunk the most seemingly decrepit

everything back then
was steamed
by desire
everything right now
is guided by
the taming of
once raging inner waters

when i think back to the spring
and the late winter just before
the heartache
that was like a violent jolt of
tectonic earth plate shiftings
and the smell of late blossoming lilacs
i think now
how
"that was then"
and
yes,
"now is
now"

and i am all the better for
all the lives ive lived in such a short span of
time

i still look to the skies
solitary murmuring
"ah zvegsdute
as nore namo"

i am still the young
20 something
looking down the tracks
head out the window
of the carriage
laughing into the wind
that swallows up my exhales
giving me my
ins...

i am still that
london twilight
somewhere off of brick lane
wandering
too broke to buy even a full pint

all of those things from then
are still with me

but i am not those things anymore
and yet
and yet
i am

every place of searching
is inked
every place of longing
is easily recalled

i have whispered to the skies
since before the desolation of
polish mafija train stations
and they
- the skies
- the oceans travailed
have answered
to my
longings of
"zvegsdute
as nore namo"

little star
i want to go home.

today,
i kiss
the sky
my face
aflame
with the holiness
of
now.


kim thompson. 13.21 seoul. s. korea. tuesday. 6 sept. '11