Along the creek,
between road
and road,
down where the forest floor
became an overlapping valley
of mossy fallen logs,
drawing a strange scar through the rolling landscape,
everything rendered emerald by the sunlight pouring through the canopy.
You weren’t there.
Someone else was,
one or another,
nothing alike,
from different eras of my life.
I used the landmark technique
to explore
the first time,
then took someone else with me.
Did we get high?
I don’t remember.
So much of that time of my life
I don’t remember.
I can picture
each room where I lived
with perfect clarity,
as though I could reach out and touch
each cold, smooth wall,
each water-stained window.
I can turn the saturation down,
grey out and muffle so many things,
but I cannot change the otherness,
the perfectness of that valley,
the one I will never get to show you.
