I stand where I once longed to be,
Within the walls that shelter me.
The hearth is warm, the voices near,
Yet something in me is not here.

The doors I sought now open wide,
And still I linger just outside.
As though my steps have found the place,
But not yet learned its quiet grace.

Familiar paths beneath my feet,
Kind faces that I often meet--
And yet there rests, beneath it all,
A distance I cannot recall.

It is not cold, nor harsh, nor wrong,
No broken note within the song,
But like an echo, faint and thin,
That never quite finds where to begin.

So I remain, both near and far,
A dim reflection of a star
That knows the sky it's meant to claim,
But flickers yet without its name.

Perhaps in time, the space will close,
And what is distant, nearer grows.
Until that day, I stand between
At home in place, not yet in being.

Penned by my hand on the 12th of Daedalan, in the year 1003 AF.