A Thousand Miles Away

❤

The breeze is warm and salty -

As it washes over my skin.

I close my eyes and breathe it in.

My senses ignite, each and every one,

Flooded with the sensations of home.

Its beauty fills the landscape of my soul ,

And all it has ever known.

I tilt my head as the sounds return.

The gulls that shriek and the waves that crash,

Upon the rocks that I stand upon,

As I stare out across the bay of that small town

The water shimmers its deep green,

That the kelp and seaweed impart.

Eyes still closed, heart still open -

I see the little girl I once was,

Lean down and lift a kelp in her hands.

I smile as I remember the thoughts she had -

Would it taste as good as it looked?

Probably not, she thought,

Squeezing the kelp between her fingers.

She smiles her little smile -

Much like the one that graces my face now,

Remembering the innocence and joy,

That little girl knew as she hopped rock to rock.

She need not look down at her feet,

Those rocks were the same as last week,

The week before that, they were there then, too.

I open my eyes and look at the sand,

That washes back and forth between my toes.

The sand back home was the darker basalt,

That shone blue in the sun’s bright rays.

A gull cries overhead, and I wonder -

Is it the same gull I heard all those years ago?

I’m grownup now, and I know better,

But my heart is young, and I let myself hope -

With the heart like I once had.

My toes are cold from the water that flows,

Around my ankles, swallowing my toes.

I shiver, and it reminds me of the cold,

And deep and dark waters that flowed -

In the dreams of a little girl full of hope.

She hoped for escape, for faraway lands.

She did not know just how deep in her veins,

Flowed the waters of her homeland.

Here, I stand. The woman who dreams -

Of the beauty and purity of the place.

I once longed to escape.

Now, I hope. I dream. I yearn -

For the shores of my small Alaskan town.

❤

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