A Lost Landscape
They ask me what I really want:
My old escape, my hallowed haunt,
The fractured landscape of a home,
The storied forest, free to roam.
The heights from which, when looking down
Both land and clarity were found.
The pine trees held me on their knees,
The birches giggled in the breeze.
The street lamp standing soldier-still
Enclasped in roses, damn the thrill
Of moonlight on the glinting snow
As bright as daylight - I would know.
I walked those hours, I spoke that hush,
I bent those branches, cleared that brush,
I craved those sunsets, sipped that rain,
I trampolined to kill my pain.
I hoed that garden, mowed that lawn,
I wrote my novels until dawn
Upon a desk my daddy made;
These memories can never fade.
What stands apart inside of me,
A field with but a single tree:
A sorrow deep as oceans blue,
A moan for loss I can’t undo,
A yearning for a single hour
Hid within my attic bower,
For I was raised by dryad wind
With dirty toes, and hair unpinned.
My old escape, my hallowed haunt,
The fractured landscape of a home,
The storied forest, free to roam.
The heights from which, when looking down
Both land and clarity were found.
The pine trees held me on their knees,
The birches giggled in the breeze.
The street lamp standing soldier-still
Enclasped in roses, damn the thrill
Of moonlight on the glinting snow
As bright as daylight - I would know.
I walked those hours, I spoke that hush,
I bent those branches, cleared that brush,
I craved those sunsets, sipped that rain,
I trampolined to kill my pain.
I hoed that garden, mowed that lawn,
I wrote my novels until dawn
Upon a desk my daddy made;
These memories can never fade.
What stands apart inside of me,
A field with but a single tree:
A sorrow deep as oceans blue,
A moan for loss I can’t undo,
A yearning for a single hour
Hid within my attic bower,
For I was raised by dryad wind
With dirty toes, and hair unpinned.