i recall youth
and fields where i asked my father
to explain the minutiae of the
grain my family called ‘wheat’.
i’d run through with broken
shoes on skinny paths past
harmless snakes and burst past
sandstone while chomping straw
freshly picked and void of
grain as it’d already been chewed.

i recall smiling as the skies were so
bright my mother feared for sunburn;
that and my father’s smile of delight
on his boy and his utter obliviousness
to the complex world around him.

i was there when snow fell and filled
the dirty fields with redemptive white
long before i understood any symbolism
i appreciated the beauty, even the cold.

and the mountains i took for granted?
now i regret my lack of understanding.
regret my granted taking
my youth leaving
and my lack of picturesque memory keeping.