at home in the earth

you might think that
people who travel all the time
have no sense of home

and yet you see that
they actually
have homes everywhere they step

we come from families
that reared cows
went up to the high passes
every summer
let their cattle graze
on rare herbs and flowers
and came back down on winter

to live only briefly,
before setting out to trade

and all these places were home
for a few months at a time

migration is a part of human nature,
they say

And even today
on tractors ply long distance,
you see the driver has made a home,
by setting up a little tent
with pillows and mattresses
at the back of his tent

only today,
are we confined within four walls
and think that
this is what life is meant to be
learnt to think of shelter
not as comfort but as necessity
and the only way to be