I've been traveling,
Trying to return to my roots,
So return I did,
Returned to the woods,
That carpet the mountains of the Appalachian.

Up the mountains I climbed,
An old rifle slung across my back,
Boonie cap keeping eyes free from the harsh glare of the sun as it filters through the canopy above
Trying to find on the mountain that I've been lacking in the North..

Wildlife is active all around,
A breeze is flowing up the mountain,
Whisking the settling heat up and past the peak,
My footfalls soft and sure.
I come across old trails I haven't seen in years,
Mostly washed away and rendered impassible.
On the eastern face I find the remnants of a forest fire.
The field that once held nothing but cinders littered with healthy saplings,
Already taller than I,
New deer trails and bedding areas,
The old ones I discover to be abandoned and the new roost of varmint.

It finally strikes me,
As I descend off of the old mountain,
The truth of what it was I lacked,
I fell into the trap that ensnare many a men down in the South.

The trap that the Mountains lay,
From the Adirondacks to the Allegheny,
Of being a timeless place,
Where you are unplugged from the rest of the world,
And everything is simpler,
It's a trap that had not chains to wrap around arms and legs,
But to encase around the mind.

It is easier to leave than last time,
For I know I shall return,
To this little retreat,
In the Daniel Boone National Forest.