Safe Haven

This morning I woke up before dawn to take two of my four younger siblings to the airport. It was about 6:30 when I got home and, having turned my brain on for the day, I couldn't go back to bed like I normally would. It was such a fresh, crisp morning and something about having been woken from sleep and thrown into the day gave me a heightened sense of memory as it often does. I don't really know where this came from because I haven't written anything like poetry in ages. But it felt good, and I hope that at least a few people can relate to this abstract conglomeration of memories. It is for my grandmother Helen.

Safe Haven

Midway is a rolling swell in the space between two mountains.
It is a half way point between two places, a hiding place to seek shelter in between.
It is a place you go when you need to remember things you’ve forgotten,
Like how water sounds rushing over rocks and moss, and how it feels
to walk through stickered grass to get there.
Midway is a sunrise waking you up; a cold dawn, and a dear friend.
It is horses roaming unbridled and with out shoe through a grove of russian olives.
It is wind, hail, thunder and lightning, glaring at you through tall black windows and a powerless night.
Midway is gnome houses and prophet neighbors; long bike rides and longer walks.
It is skinny dipping, hot and cold and making a pancake breakfasts with Great Grandmother Lilly’s griddle.
Midway is a relic, a sanctuary, a pilgrimage.
Midway is my childhood and my adulthood as one.