Nostos, Algos

Just like you, I too
           pine after what I thought 
I had, or used to have (as if
      they were mine to have, 
in the first place). But
           it isn't uncommon, this desire
to look back anyway at the places
      that have spit us out, perhaps
even said in so many ways Don't
           come back or I want nothing more
to do with you. The Greeks said
      nostos, meaning home; and algos,
meaning the pain and grief of 
           homesickness. In between the two
might be weather, or fighting, or leaving;
      and before that, the crimson and green
leaves of poinsettia cutting the cold
           northern air. I read the wrought
iron embossing on barbers' chairs, gold-
      brushed, where my father went for shaves
and haircuts— Koken, 1901, St. Louis, 
           U.S.A.— and knew they too 
would furnish the interiors of my nostalgia,
      years before I moved away. The floors
there are sticky with red carnauba paste wax,
           buffed to a high shine with half
a coconut shell; and the old rooms carry
      a whiff of naphthalene, violets, and
eucalyptus pastilles. I have no letters
           held together with a bit of ribbon
or old lace, and whatever pictures there were
      have turned to ash in fire. I only have
what I have now, which is flimsy and 
           not a lot. Sometimes, French
medical manuals from the 1700s described
      languishing soldiers; how nostalgie
could be as fatal as a wound. It is winter
           where I am, and on the other coast
fires burn everything in their path. What
      do we own, what do we carry but 
a catalogue of what we think we have and
           the enormity of what we no longer have.