summer sky blue

Home smells like ponderosa

baked into tall grasses

with all the warmth

of a summer oven.

And it looks like wildflowers

--flax and lupine,

paintbrush and snap dragons--

scattered everywhere

with strangely majestic thistles in between.

Did you know

that thistles smell

milky and sweet and musty

all at the same time?

And home has so many sounds:

The rumbling of dirt roads

and dashing of deer and grasshoppers.

Crickets and wind and old things

that are too tired, or too loved, to wear out.

I cannot forget this giant theater sky

with its many, many moods

playing and yelling

and whispering so many secrets.

And it does not matter

how long I am away.
I will always have sap

folded into my skin,

baked into my hands.

I may have many more homes

but I will never really wash

this dust from my hair

or this sky from my eyes.