Home is the smell of a linen closet, 

with its never ending array of 

canvased colors consisting of 

extra bedding for the unexpected 

sleepovers.

Home is the bruised hardwood floors

that have felt the resounding beat of 

shoes, bare feet, and paws

silently, sweetly, and sometimes sneakily

pass over its surface. 

Home is the sound of twinkling letters

floating in the air to form sentences

to dish out advice and adventure because

aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpas

were once young too. 

Home is the taste of 

love baked into the endless casserole dishes or

the warm, worn soup pot on the stove

filled with the sun-ripe vegetables

that remind you of the 

dew-encased summer mornings with 

Mamaw

delicately picking beans with warm hearts

and worn fingers. 

Home is the touch of a gentle mother's 

hand, putting a cool washcloth 

to your neck, or 

the sweat making your back stick to the 

wooden railing of the front porch, 

where sweet tea was sipped slowly from 

Mason jars, and stories were

slowly woven into the dance of the 

lightning bugs.