Past the Border

There is a feeling
for which no one ever taught me a name.

It has to do with home, with childhood.

It's a wakefulness, a wistfulness,
a chill at the top of my spine;
it is silence, and knowing, and ecstasy,
and somehow it's New England --
the outside world alive inside me.

I have put great faith in words;
they, godlike, have rewarded me.
But sometimes, when I turn to them,
they shrug,
as if to say:

"This is not of us. This is not for us.
This is of you. For you.
This is you."