Not my Home anymore

 

The land of my birth is not my home anymore,

I have chosen exile to what was once so familiar.

on occasions I have returned to find a different place,

I am a stranger amongst a people I no longer recognise.

An alien in the much loved landscape of my birth,

I see my old home through a sepia lens from afar.

with memories now faded and replaced, as I am out of place.

I cherish my childhood days and military service in a land I loved so well,

Yet it has become a cosmopolitan abode which I cannot call or say it is my home.

I do not resent others coming to live there.

Always a place of freedom and light even when the sun doesn't shine,

a pleasant land, a glorious past and full of memories.

So what has changed to carry me away to a foreign abode?

Because now I am an immigrant on a foreign shore,

as this is now where I call home and have found a welcome in store.

I try to collect my thoughts and see a nation which no longer sees me,

as attitudes are not those I was accustomed to know or see.

A brusque indifference towards others, fearful glances, a withdrawl.

An erosion of freedoms hard fought for.

Rampant corruption, destitution, violence and unbridled greed.

Community life has been disfigured and fragmented.

The undulating hills, pathways and rivers remain the same,

but I am a stranger in what made me and was familiar to me.

I am left to reminisce as little else takes me there.

My very being, my personality and characteristics were formed there,

and these I shall carry to the grave.

I have a profound sense of gratitude for the land of my birth,

but it is no longer home.