NaPoWriMo 2017 - Prompt #26 - Coming Home

"Coming Home"
Artwork depicting a lighthouse stretching into the distance
to guide a lost sailing ship home.

Building on yesterday's theme of "Travel," today we look at "Coming Home."  It is a unique aspect of the travel experience that requires having gone away, and then defining a home to which to return.  Some journeys end with home as the destination every day, while other trips never return home at all.  All trips are different, all homes are unique.  Read through yesterday's prompt on travel, and consider how different kinds of voyages would "come home."  And here, of course, are a few lines about "coming home" found in poetry:

We All Return to the Place Where We Were Born by Oscar Gonzales

Then, crickets would forge in the wind
their deep music of centuries
and the purple fragrances of Grandmother
always would receive without questions
our return home.

Our House by Sophie Cabot Black

As we enter our home, the way we enter love
Returning from elsewhere to call out
Each other’s names, pulling the door closed behind us.

Where You Live by Jonathan Wells

Imagine you are coming home. Your front
steps are scattered with fresh petals or no
they are not there and you return in your
regular shoes from your regular leather chair.
The feeling is the same.

Prompt #26:  Choose some aspect of the concept of "coming home" and write a poem.  What or who awaits you there?  What is different upon your return?  How has home changed?  How have you changed?  What aspects of home are longed for, and which are undesired?  What do you bring with you or what have you lost since your last visit?  Coming home can also be something that occurs entirely in the mind - a coming home to ourselves.  Consider these ideas as you craft your poem.

For something more specific, write your poem in a standard form, using both meter and rhyme.

And naturally I'll be thinking of what I can do with this theme in a sci-fi, horror, or fantasy context.

Did you use this or one of our other prompts? You can post your poem in our comments, if you like.

Happy Writing!

Prompts crafted by:
J.A. Grier, Senior Scientist and Education Specialist, Planetary Science Institute
Amy Grier, Managing Editor, Solstice Literary Magazine
Image Credits: Coming Home Wikimedia Commons CC 3.0