elastic synapses bring me back momentarily before projecting future visions across the landscape of my mind’s eye youthful vigor and swaying pines sage wafting across the high desert at sunset – my heart yearns to return home to a place it has never lived but always loved broken feldspar littered juniper and jackrabbits in January – rusted jalopy rattles down pumas pathways seeking the young buck recently free from velvet hunger tempering the shot starving children create a year-round season – lost in time wagon wheels still rest along wind beaten fences tumbleweeds build mountains along the west side of run down shacks the vestibule of the cottontail the vestige of a forgotten age –