Hiraeth: "A longing or nostalgia for a home, one that you cannot return to or one that never existed." I don't think of it as an either/or situation when it comes to "a home you can't return to or one that never existed". The tone of Hiraeth is about a home you can't retreat to because it never really existed: it's more about how the idea of home makes us feel, rather than the universal cliché of "a house is not a home".
Since home is a feeling, getting 'home' can sometimes be a journey. Hiraeth reads like an epic, a story of a journey to a mythical place or feeling. The tone of the poems reflects how it may never have really existed, and yet that still doesn't stop one from longing for it or reminiscing. This book is a yearning for what home could be but how you can live without it.
Hiraeth is written from the perspective of being wounded and scarred, but still not giving up. It reads like a series of battles, ultimately building up to a war. No matter how close death seems or how convenient it may be as an exit strategy, you stay alive for yourself and for God who gave you life. It's a battle, it always will be but that's what makes it worth fighting for. Don't give up when there's endless potential. It goes along the lines of the warrior's creed. Don't just survive when you can thrive.
