My feet carried me here:

a long, loping trail

snaking its way upward

into the heartbeat of a mountain.

My feet hear the rumble of a cyclist

long before my eyes spot him.

We breathe heat in unison as he passes,

my legs leaping the to the trail’s edge

to lean against an aspen’s white chocolate bark.

Her leaves dance with alpine wind,

the shake of schoolyard games.

I am flung back through time

to my ten year old body:

Clink of ice in sweet lemonade

on a splintered wooden deck

cloudless sky and brilliant sun.

Wild heat presses my skin

awakening my afternoon dreams.

In the silence of the forest

a steady hum of sound:

bug music with microphone of swarm

buzz and whisper of gasping bramble bushes

kettle corn pop of my feet on the dirt

as I begin to move again.

I found my stillness.

The slow rotation of the Earth

her breathing chest

and steady heartbeat

in the ribcage of a mountain trail.

My feet carried me here. I’ve arrived.