I’m hit with sounds and smells of you
Sitting behind a smoker on the transit
And I’m strangely nostalgic
I’ve grown to love it
Because on you it’s mixed with pine
Like you dozed off next to a fire pit

I realize you’re all around me
Because in these parts
short flannel clad men
with tall egos
are a dime a dozen

Though I know when I move away
I’ll look back with yearning
On those nights in your car
(they meant more to me than you know)
listening to Tame Impala and waiting for the bridge
bass cranked high like the heat
effervescent windows frosted
from our craft brewed breaths
singing and saturated with spirit(s)

Was this home or all I came to know?

I can’t deny that summer will never again
be as heavy with happiness
as when the sky has stopped her crying
long enough to paint in pastels
canopied air crisp enough to bite
I guess that’s what happens
when you spend 2/3 of the year in grey

it’s not for me

I could say when it started; I could feign confidence in this place, in the hour. The truth is, I could sail on the rolling tides of time and I'd still yet never move in a straight line. That's how it's always been - like a clock that lags a split second longer on even numbers, and pauses to scrutinize the odd. Like standing in a crowd, waving to a friend you don't remember meeting. Reading words that make no sense to anyone but their writer, or knowing those words are your own; my own. Words where meaning has been lost, a dying light I never got the chance to experience. One day, I will experience it.

I saw beauty today
In the rusty soil
Vast forests
Mountain after mountain
Until I was surrounded
Then I laid in the sun
Allowed it to caress my skin
Closed my eyes
And I listened
The water flowing gently
Peaceful
The wind blew
It wrapped around me
Throwing bits of hair around
And then it was still
I was still
And it was in that place
I once again opened my eyes
And I saw beauty

First sun-warmed sand
First boots-and-socks-off beach
First ankle-deep stand in rushing water
First SPF rubbed on my face
First crocus pops up in the yard
(Delicately)

Nearby, a young father begins
to teach his toddling young
how to fish.
(Patiently)

Last high-country snowshoe
Last low-country woodstove fire
Last hot bourbon toddy
Last dreamy days of Pisces
Last longing for lost love melts away
(Finally.)

Early over the mountain
the nearly-but-not-yet worm moon
spies the confluence and I below.
(Knowingly)

Here at the place where things change,
the wild world fills me
and I devote myself once more.
(Wholly)

For one who is in love with the chase
And the glory of all things yet-to-be done,
The true rapture of Nature is in knowing
She is too Big, Wild, and Free to own.
(Like me.)

Birds flutter around,
Like fighter jets,
Flying through and out of a concentration of green matter,
Feasting on the summer’s last bounty,
Their happy chirps setting the background of my nature made hiking soundtrack,
The sun may not be out,
But the warmth that radiates through my soul,
Reminds me that I am alive,
For a fleeting moment,
The stomps of my boots and the flutters in my belly,
Coupled with the beads of sweat gathering at the part of my head you like to kiss,
Time slows down,
There’s no me and there’s no you,
I can feel nature and I dancing in equilibrium,
I think I made peace with alone.

i swear my heart mimics
the crescendo of the ocean’s tireless hum
and i am overcome with both solace and grief in knowing that my own rhythm will fall in defeat long before the waves ever stop crashing into the shore

Drunk with my name dripping from your mouth.
Fingers curling as gently push me further south.
Your secret is mine
Safe between my mouth and your waistline.
Carving down your spine
Clashing like the northwest coastline.
Dissolving pieces of you into my shore.
This night is my chance to infect your core.