Transient People

For those forever moving, where do we have a sense of belonging?

I wonder—does the Pakistanti laborer in Dubai, high above the ground,
find home in the steel he fastens?

Does the Indonesian chef in Singapore, stirring old flavors in a foreign land, call the island home—or is it just a place to stand?

And what of us, a decade steeped into the United States, this melting pot?

I watch the news of this United States and the news of the land I once called home, I find comfort in distance—as if I am a bystander to both nations. Yet what I am not bystander to?

What are roots,
if not the places we leave behind
and the echoes that follow us forward?