Nature's Child

 

I walk through the doorway of the morning:

grey sky, a cool breeze, a new day

beginning.

I am remembering how hot summer was

when I was young, how, when I hiked in the hills,

the ground was soft with fallen pine needles,

springy under my feet.

The trees smelled almost burnt in the heat.

The scent of sage and ponderosa pine

- the smell of home - was all around,

and I would drink from the long wooden trestles

that carried water downhill to the vineyards below.

I never encountered a rattlesnake,
but a herd of grazing cows 
once followed me, as I walked downhill,
singing.

I was always nature's child.