This is an ode to the coin in my boot. A prayer to the bells above my mother's doorway. A love letter to a Motherland I have never seen and a dirge for every child ripped from their father's arms. I feel like I've walked forever and a day, but I've never once left home. Blessed are we vagrants, damned as we are to roam.
I remember how my mother looked at me when I set out on my own. Out of five children, the second youngest was the first to leave home. Beneath all her fear, I could tell she was proud.
"The world is cruel", she warned me, "but give it time".
My other mother just pressed a coin into my palm; she was never one to mix words.
Its been a dozen seasons since then, and it'll be a dozen more before I know where I'm going. My path was charted long ago. My destination dreamed into being by ancestors whose names I'll never know. Generations carried forward by a common goal: peace and joy for all our kin. Opre Roma. May we all find our way home.