You are always welcome. Come if you may from another continent; from places where the skies are cloudless year-round; from cities where you can be fined for walking across the grass, and from the jungles of litter surrounding them. Come if you may from the Southern Hemisphere; from a place where the oceans meet; from a land divided by barbed wire; come even if the deserts overflow their banks, if people are migrating and mixing, if brother knows not brother, stranger not stranger, rivers turn to gutters, veins turn to rivers. As far as I’m concerned, come if you may from somewhere entirely else—from planets where methane rains fall or the air pressure will squish the capsules of suicide tourists. Come if you may through copper pipes, through gray stone. You are welcome even if you haven’t the strength or the courage. You are welcome even if it’s certain you won’t come; if you feel like a threadbare-designed bag filled with the dirty laundry of you and your loved ones that will cycle forever between airports. When you come, I will be sitting in the yard, a neighbor will be sawing, a neighbor will be mowing, I’ll be listening to the sound of the world’s last bee on the radio, even the crows will be quiet, I’ll silently count to three (/ / /), and a moment later, the garden gate should squeak.