Search Party

Vincent Hostak

January 16, 2021

Standing in line November third,

I thought of a neighborhood search party.

It was too early, too cold, 

not enough coffee in us

to greet the day in this way.

Not one dared imagine

what we gathered to do 

didn’t make a difference,

wouldn’t mean the world

to someone.

I heard a song:

I walked these woods before.

At their darkest, I knew the markers:

every scrub oak and mountain juniper,

the roots swelling from the path.

I roamed this place before.

At their inmost, I was foot sure.

Even through the mazy deer lanes,

I could find my way—there and back.

But parts grew unfamiliar

overgrown with briar:

catclaw where a meadow lived,

elderberry in the creek bottom.

In January, we thought,

she may have been a lost child,

our neglected dear intentions.

But there in line,

I looked at you, you at me—

strangers in a moment

when we were cursed

by affection without exception

to call our country back home.

VINCENT HOSTAK is a poet, essayist, and advocate. Long a resident of Texas, he resides in the intersection of city and wilderness near Denver.  His poetry is published in Sonder Midwest (#5), Tejascovido.com, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and Wild, Abandoned (the blog). His podcast on refugee resettlement & culture: https://anchor.fm/crossingsrefugees.