Homing — Summary

Arna Bontemps’s “Homing” moves between a remembered landscape and a painful present. The first stanza recalls a lush, wooded place full of wind, green trees, mist, a stream, and the sound of strong men cutting timber. It feels fertile and alive, but also tied to hard work. In the second stanza, the speaker turns to a broken, empty house and a silent tree that seem to call out to him. He asks whether he must always be a wild bird riding the wind and screaming bitterly. The poem creates a mood of longing and exile. The speaker feels a deep pull toward home—a place that is partly beautiful, partly broken—but he cannot settle there. The final image of the restless, crying bird captures that painful feeling of belonging somewhere and yet having no way to truly return.