… I watch them, the creatures of a city I have dreamed, the flowering
of an ache to be at home …

These lines are from a poem called “The Flowering” by Glenn Shea, from a collection called Find a Place That Could Pass for Home, featured on today’s “Writer’s Almanac.”  The poem caught my eye because it’s about home and about London, where I’ve always felt at home.

I think of a city I have dreamed, and I see the canyons of Lower Manhattan, the hidden mews of the Village, the broad swath of Amsterdam heading north, the green lawns of Central Park, front yard of a nation.

I remember the grass there, its outcroppings of rock, the aroma of a summer subway, clanging of metal against metal, a fresh breeze from the river flowing across our roof. The haze of a summer Sunday, heading back to my little apartment, knowing I could never live in the city forever, that this place I loved would never be my home.