Fragments Of Frost And Fire – Episode 7 – The Home That Wasn’t

By Lawrence Nault Last Updated

 The Home That Wasn’t

I never lived on Cape Breton—
just came when I could,
chasing the quiet
like a man chasing warmth
in the smoke of another’s fire.

Still, the land spoke.
Not in words,
but in wind through tamarack
and loon-call twilight
over Bras d’Or’s patient blue.
A scenic coastal view showing a large body of blue water stretching to the horizon, with a curved sandy beach and low hills or mountains visible in the distance. The foreground features lush green vegetation and shrubs, while the sky appears clear with a soft blue-gray color. The landscape suggests a peaceful, natural coastal setting with rolling terrain extending along the shoreline.
Derek Hatfield, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I’ve seen it in all her moods—
spring rising shy and soft,
fog lifting like a veil from the hills.
Summer thick with salt and sunburn,
kids leaping from docks,
the echo of laughter carrying
farther than it should.

But it was autumn that claimed me.
A blaze of fire in the trees,
like the whole island had set itself alight
just to say: look what you could belong to—

if only you’d stay.

Even winter felt less cruel there.
Snow drifted slow as thought,
and the cold didn’t bite
so much as invite
you inward—
to stew pots, old tunes,
the hush of a world
that doesn’t beg to be conquered.

Every visit, I thought—
maybe next time,
maybe I’ll plant something here
besides footsteps.
Maybe I’ll let these shores
claim me proper.

But the years came fast,
and the rest of my life
stayed tethered elsewhere—
to jobs,
to promises,
to people who never heard
the lilt in the wind
that I did.

Now, I know—
I’ll never live there.
Never see the leaves turn
from the same porch
year after year.
Never watch the ice creep in
and think, this is mine to wait out.

Still, when I dream,
it’s of spruce shadows,
and gulls wheeling above
a quiet that forgives me
for never belonging.

Maybe
that’s what made it home
all along—
not the claim I made on it,
but how gently
it never asked.

 

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