.                            Cedars of Peace, Nerinx KY

The woods refuse to give
up their words, and so I
leave them for a while,
walk up the gravel road
that years of weather
and neglect is washing back
to red clay, where I walked
my first night, rain
gathering on either side
of me, to the field where the wet
baled hay put off such
sweetness I could taste the air.
The days of sun have dried it all—I think
I must have dreamt the swooning
scent of it, and all around I find wild
cousins of the beauty in my garden—
purple phlox and daisies, tickweed,
rudbeckia, hummingbird vine
wrapped high around a telephone pole,
abandoned like the gate to what was once
a farm road—even one pink rose,
planted perhaps in memory
of somewhere left behind.
All signs point to home.

-Pauletta Hansel