On Reading Le Guin

Yesterday I packed my bags,
said goodbye to husband, daughter,
cats, friends, the daily chores,
told my son to hurry up
if he was coming too.

Before we left the house,
before we opened the door,
I smelled salt in the air,
heard the wind whip waves
against the wooden wharves.

Years since I last sailed
the islands of Earthsea,
but everything the same:
the swift hawk's flight,
that brightness on the water,
the fire the dragons woke in me.

The boy I met thirty years ago
glanced past me, eager for adventure,
his impatience pinned in the pages
with his youth, while I,
outside the story for so long,
had grown older, fatter, named my son,
but now am coming home.