There are flowers

Before I boarded the plane and wished my hometown away forever

The one who taught me most of what I know

Bade me goodbye for the last time and told me:

That it's easy to get homesick from time to time, it happens to all of us

But every country has

Trees - grass - dirt - flowers

It’s the way people sustain themselves

No matter how different they may be

And I see it now:

These people look different

They talk and gesture oddly

Walk at different speeds

Their faces contort rapidly in unfamiliar ways

An alien blur of colour and motion

Here money changes hands quickly

And it's difficult to discern kind from hateful

Even the buildings, pavements and roads are stranger

Tall, winding and convoluted

Things that I had taken for face value to be the same, are all too different now

But for me, it’s safe to know

And I repeat what my teacher told me for the last time before I boarded the plane

Tracing my fingertips

over the smudged taxi window glass

as we drive on

There’s the old Italian woman tending to her garden with sun-wrinkled hands

There is a tree

There is grass

There is dirt

And

There are flowers.