train tracks & trestles

i am lost under train tracks and trestles,

under tree tops and over bridges.

i tightrope walk electricity wires

and the birds flutter from my feet.

i am far, far, away from my homeland.

the air does not taste the same,

the crows do not scream the same.

i sleep with cedar rooting around me.

a second shoe of mud grows around

my toes as i go.

i am wood burning fires in the winter,

smoke piping up from the chimney.

i, too, float up and disappear.

i have been lost now for sixty years –

the national parks did not find me.

i never made love with a compass,

without pine needles under my back

and steel grey storm clouds overhead.

take me, stormy summer sky.

love me, lonely winter mountains.

keep me, anybody. i am as young

as rings and trees and have so much to offer.

i fly off with flocks of crows

and you forget my name.

by mari jagt, 2018.