Bristling branches brush the brazen boldness of summer kissed flesh
Scratching their stories across warm leather and black skin
Kissing the sun with its brilliant caricature smiling from the canvas of hair, freckled flesh and happiness
The winding wind pulling in the playful tangle of curled hair
Where cheeks blushed under exertion
Huffing breath like a prayer
The call too great
Like a sudden pain in the soul
The sound the rush the feeling of touching something that was real
Stays real even after the moment is gone
Tickling hairs of grass meet curious hands walking the hurried gate down into the rocky trail bed
Feet teetering on unstable rock-stone-steps
Tapping out the excited rhythm of her heart
In the meadow on the trail in between the trees
She was truly beautiful
A vision of free.

Here.
Quietly, then all at once
Her voices and touches arise.
Smiling bright as smooth sunshine,
I lift up my nose to the breeze.

Childhood hides among the brambles
Laughter peeks from under each stone
The trail hums with life.
Walking, gliding through the brush
Playing peek-a-boo with the path,
I embrace Her like an old lover and teacher,
For it was here
In the shade of figs and acorns
That I learned I could soar.

Here.
Where beetles mate and ants labor
Where crackle-leaves dissolve and the soil exhales warmth
Where field mice scurry and fledglings learn to fly.

Even on another continent,
Her caress is familiar.
It is the one of thorn bushes and wildflowers and weeds.
It is the stumble-over-stones
And the ear-tickling-buzz of the bees.

Here.
I know I am Home.

When you go camping,
and the world lifts itself from your shoulders
and the problems back home seem silly and irrelevant
human life, and
what you may have been trying to achieve
in your leather black ergonomic chair
and your dark polished wood desk
seems silly and irrelevant
The world is here, in the wood-pecker’s tap-tap-taping in the trees
the checkered calculated lines of the water being pulled to shore by the wind,
viewed from above
like the birds that push themselves into the tide and float
back to shore then push themselves out again.
the world is here, 
forgotten by the city, and the construction worker’s crack-crack-crack of the hammer
the calculated system of traffic guided by flashing lights, turning signs and abrasive horns
from behind the wheel 
where the man sits in a satin black suit and smooth leather car seat
sipping at his morning coffee, purchased for $2.25 and cradled by spring-loaded cupholders,
until he reaches for the silver handle of his glass office door, and stops
looking down at his brown-leather shoes that cut into the rounded bone on the side of his ankle
and decides,
time to go camping

When I was younger
I refused to sleep
with the windows open.

I denied myself
the relief of fresh summer night air,
preferring instead
the stuffy silence
of a closed window.

I refused to allow
the sounds of faraway trains and cars
to permeate my sonic solitude.

The absence of sound and
of movement cloaked my bedroom,
with the blankness of a blizzard
and the density of a rainforest canopy.

I felt safe
in the silence,
content even though,
only sometimes,
I lay awake in the silent warmth
for hours,
in various contortions or
prone on the carpeted floor,
in a desperate plea for
the planets of my mind and body
to align so that I could sleep.

These days,
my window remains open,
environment permitting,
so that the crickets and the sounds of passing cars
sing me to sleep,
a suburban symphony of mundane sounds.

Some nights, a wind
creeps in and I become wistful
as I drift away,
for days that have been,
might be,
and will never come.

I like the smell
of pavement
after rain.

It reminds me of camping trips
from when I
was a kid.

I would lay awake
listening
to the rain hitting the tarpaulin roof.

ping
              (pong)
ping

A symphony of raindrops
sounded like golfballs
to my childish ears.

I imagined a barrel
tipped over
with those dimpled spheres cascading

into the
           air and onto
                           the roof of the camper.

But in the morning
I would step outside and
would only be met with the smell of the rain.

six beads of water
spaced along the shallow fold
of a green grass blade

mother bear
three cubs in tow,
wonder I, where
not sure, where to go,

nature's hers, to run,
these feet are mine
bright day with sun-
shining, oh so fine,

gave her room, gave her space
my friend met her face to face,
at the bank of the creek, turned,
ran hard until his lungs burned,

not able to yell,
couldn't tell
if he made it to drive away
yet I heard, the quad saved the day,

Both man and grizzly are alive,
Bear runs the forest, that man drives
and
works out
there with
a shotgun by
his side, buried
his pride.

rain or shine
i shan’t not decline
the desire to ride
nor indoors abide

the sound of the wind is a lullaby
sang by each and every blade of grass
their voices so distinctive no noise can they amass.                                        
Except omitting the motion of movement in the wind,
they play a silent lullaby to echo in the dawn of spring.