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Bonus Poem: I Wonder, Mountaineer

How does one end up
In a house on the trembling edge,
Breathing in the mountain air?

How do you, stranger in a strange land,
Decide this paradise is the one to throw
Your blanket down on in the grass

And smell the sweet lavender
While it reaches out its royal arms
Toward you, tenderly?

Did you smell the dankness
Of the city first? Or were you born
On that fresh mountaintop,

Skiboots strapped on shortly
After diapers? I wonder about your place
In the sun and wonder if you've ever seen

Oceantide in the evening,
Foaming up on the soft-sanded shore
While the sea turtles scurry in head-first?

And I wonder if you've ever known
Five lanes of traffic, or swampy flatlands,
Or desert thirst and the miracle of cactus.

Mountaineer, you are a force of curiosity,
Barreling through my thoughts as I drive
Back to the dankness, to the five lanes

You've never needed, to the people
You may never meet. And I leave you
To the rocks and the trees of Heaven on Earth.

And I wonder if I could have the strength
To sit in that silence, in the lavender's arms
And not wonder about the ocean foam.




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