Musafir Tara

Before she left, her mother pressed a single thread into her hand.

“So the road remembers where you began.”

She walked until the hills had no names she knew.

The cities were bright.

None of the lights were hers.

One night, the thread felt very thin.

So she looked up.

One star had followed her the whole way.

After that, she wove in every place she passed.

A mountain. A harbor. A stranger’s kindness.

The thread became a shawl. The shawl became home, carried.

Now, when someone leaves by starlight, she walks a little way beside them.