Depending on one's individual situation in life, the call of home can be either strong or weak, powerful or utterly feeble, loud and clear, or barely a whisper. For some of us, homelife is a constant source of misery, something that no longer fulfills our emotional needs. For others, it's a source of comfort and security, a place where the heart most truly is.

Both sides of the equation are treated in “At Dusk” by Natasha Trethewey. The call of home is represented by the voice of her neighbor, who cries out to her cat in the waning light in the hope that she will answer the call and come home.

But the woman's voice is not sufficiently powerful to tear her cat away from the “luminous possibilities” of staying right where she is. The cat would much rather stay put in the yard, with a constellation of fireflies dancing round her head.

Eventually, the neighbor gives up and goes back inside her house. The call of home, at least on this occasion, was not sufficiently powerful to do the trick.

Many of us are like the cat in that we would much rather explore the luminous possibilities of staying away from home as much as possible and seeing what the world has to offer. Whether we do this out of sadness at our home lives or because we genuinely want to, the call of home no longer enjoys much resonance with us.

And yet, there's another side to the story. As one can see from the confidence with which the speaker proclaims her ability to call someone home with her voice, home and all it represents can still exert a remarkable pull upon our deepest emotions.