Remains

I found a little patch of herbs –
Sage, thyme, a bent and stubborn rosemary tree –
Growing in a hollow near the shore.
And I wondered who planted them here,
A traveller like me, settled for a while,
The caravan wheels stilled,
The horse put out to graze below the abbey walls.
Even the wanderers
Like to claim a piece of earth,
To dig and plant and leave their mark
Upon the soil.
These remain,
And when we return, the tree has grown,
The mint run rampant through the campsite,
The borage run to seed.
We belong nowhere on the earth,
And yet to all of it,
We call nowhere home,
And everywhere we’ve been.