Birch and Barbed Wire (poets)

Dusk had a smell where I grew up.

I've never been able to describe

the sweetness that only for a moment was carried through the ever setting sunlight

that mixed with the birch and barbed wire and grass soaked from the sprinkler

that I ran through all day.

Life was full and long where I grew up.

There was love, adventure, walks with my dog down to the creek to pick cattails

a good hill for tobogganing that dad always made sure was packed just right for a good ride down to the bottom and you felt like you flew

an extra fifteen minutes of tv with mom where she let us eat all of her nachos even though she really wanted them

growth, pain, and tears the first day I walked down to pick cattails and my dog wasn't there anymore.

My heart remains where I grew up.

The sound of gravel under tires, an open field with a stand of trees in the middle

driving by that old creek

are sometimes the only things that make me feel like I'm home.

I guess I can't go home again

even though that barbed wire never kept me in, and that swingset that my dad and uncle and granddad built never kept me on the ground

I became planted and I bloomed

all because of the place

where dusk had a smell

and my heart was left at the bed of the creek

that day we moved away.