Home is Where the Sun Sets

Robyn Claypool

In late October, a pacific sun fades to the west, where you cannot see it fall to its slumber, blanketed in mists, wet concrete, raindrops grazing tall panes of glass.

I could almost dive into them and go right back to the canopies of emerald pines rising from the salt of the mountainous earth.

Days later, I take the dried daisies from the picture on top of the pantry and I put them over closed eyes. Her hair still shines beautifully in the casket. They close the lid and carry her out of the church. I follow behind.

I could hear the people in the last pews solemnly whispering, “That poor boy; he killed his Ma.”

Here, the prairie sky is dry and clear, concrete buildings so low that I can watch the sun slip away slow and steady over the earth.

Here, when the leaves turn to embers, no wet drops fall from the heavens. I find myself worried, I find myself weary. This is the time I usually feel watered, after the long dehydration of a scorching summer.

Out there, on the coast, I found solace in the dark wet shadows of my home. Now that I’ve left them behind, somehow I know they will always call to me.

Out there, were ocean tides and the faces of my friends. I see them here here only in dim corners, or in puddle reflections that remind me of those quiet coastal silver skies.

But I don’t. I can’t, I am here now and a bright prairie sun sets itself inside my chest. My snowy eyes reflect the vast blue skies over miles of alfalfa and canola fields, lakes dreamy and slow. They make a nest inside my bones, blood and soul.

I know home is what you make of it although I often wonder where I am truly meant to be.

At any moment in time? In any particular place? I know now that it must be here, as this is where I am. Beneath this sky. Watching this sun. How can that be wrong?

“Before the Storm” depicts those strange moments of silence and tranquillity before a disaster. Living in the 21st century has all kinds of surprises everyday. Media is filled with natural disasters, wars, and etc. I think we are all living those moments before a storm, constantly worried that this silence is not right and something awful is going to happen, anxiety on top of anxiety.