You may leave but it will never leave you,

some body of water.  Where the winds are

a second skin that smell of smoky campfires

and salted fish, clean and inviting.  Where fish

are practical, whales are cousins, and boats are

objects of beauty to be admired like architecture. 

If the winds had colors, they'd be fat ribbons that

let loose or tie depending on the mood of the water,

which is so deep it is as blurred as the sky.  The

mountains envelop this water, and cradle any sun

that pigments their curvy sides, old mothers.  This

is where your children sing and run naked in their boots,

their eyes shining and cheeks lacing pink. You run too,

the fish run, fireweed pink as roe bloom, bloom as you.

THE END